TKXAS. 


od  •  or)  •  1  h)c  •  LJVC    o   •  1  r)G 


A  PAPER 


READ  BEFORE  THE 


CIRCIRR^I 


OF 


EX-ARMY  AND  NAVY  OFFICERS, 

JANUARY   3d,  1884. 


BY 


HON.  CHARLES  ANDERSON, 

's 

Late  Colonel  Ninety-third  Ohio  Volunteer  Infantry. 


C  I  NCINNATI; 

PETER  G    THOMSON,  Publisher, 
1884. 


ganccoft  lUbMB 

iEXO 

BEFORE,  AND  ON  THE  EVE  OF  THE 

REBELLION. 


COMRADES  AND  LADIES  AND  GENTLEMEN:— It  is  very  doubtful 
whether  any  of  you  fully  comprehend  the  significance  of  our  evening's 
topic  :  Texas  and  her  action  and  influence  in  and  upon  the  Rebellion. 
It  may  be  very  likely,  as  usual,  that  your  speaker,  on  this  occasion,  as 
much  overrates,  as  his  audience  underrates,  his  subject.  But  even  with 
this  caution,  you  will  be  surprised  to  hear  a  statement  of  this  my  be- 
lief; that,  excepting  South  Carolina  alone,  Texas  had  more  to  do  with 
starting  that  colossal  blunder  and  crime  than  any  half  dozen  other 
States  of  the  Confederacy,  and  that,  without  the  movements  of  Texas, 
the  Rebellion  would  have  aborted  in  its  earliest  stages,  and  closed  as  a 
ridiculous  farce,  instead  of  in  that  horrific  tragedy,  which  so  startled  and 
grieved  the  Nation  and  the  World.  Let  us  briefly  generalize  the  facts, 
which  seem  to  justify  this,  her  claim,  to  that  bad  preeminence. 

The  History  of  Texas  was  very  peculiar.     Her  independence  of 

—  Mexico  was  won  by  the  cunning  and  heroism  of    mere  adventurers. 
Like  spirits  followed  after  these  in  the  permanent  settlement  of  that 

j.*' Lone  Star  Nation."  It  was  but  natural  that,  with  such  a  start  into 
national  life,  secrecy,  address,  boldness,  and  disregard  of  the  established 
of  morality,  or  of  law  and  order,  in  and  between  men  and  nations, 
should  have  been  characteristics  of  this  new  people.  Ano^that  the  sub- 
sequent enterprise — in  one  sense  new — the  annexation  of  this  vast  ter- 
ritory as  a  slave  State  against  all  the  laws  and  traditions  of  Mexico,  and 
a  most  earnest  and  passionate  opposition  of  a  large  majority  of  the  best 
people  of  the  United  States,  must  necessarily  have  called  into  life,  and 
most  energetic  action,  the  same  qualities  of  sly  conspiracy  and  bold 
executions-was  a  very  certain  consequence. 


—  4  — 

Then  was  brought  on  our  war  with  Mexico,  so  infamous  in  its  de- 
signs and  false  pretenses,  and  so  important,  if  not  grand  and  glorious, 
in  its  far-reaching  and  complicated  results.  In  all  these  stages  of  this 
great  Texas-plot,  it  is  plain  enough,  that  characteristics  of  the  same  kind 
should  have  been  developed  in  her  people.  And  so  the  Texans  of 
1859-60  were  the  very  stuff,  fitted  and  ready  for  a  new  and  grander 
adventure  of  intringue,  conspiracy,  revolution,  rebellion,  and  war,  than 
had  been  either  of  their  former  enterprises  in  these  lines. 

Next ;  Texas  held  within  her  vast  area  almost  the  one-half  of  our 
entire  standing  army  (two  thousand  six  hundred  and  twelve  men),  with 
arms,  ordnance,  munitions,  and  complete  furnitures  and  supplies  for  an 
army.  These  cost  millions  of  dollars,  and,  in  such  an  enterprise,  were 
worth  vastly  more  to  either  party  in  possession — the  Government  or  the 
Rebels.  What  a  devil's  hint  and  devil's  opportunity  lurked  in  this  con- 
dition of  a  State,  when  tempted  by  unprincipled  demagogues,  to  revolt ! 

Again  ;  behold  how  her  very  magnitude  of  area  and  boundaries 
became  a  facility  for  successful  treason,  rebellion,  and  their  war.  Her 
area  was  237,231  square  miles — more  than  six-fold  Ohio  or  Kentucky — 
and  her  exposed  frontiers,  between  fourteen  and  seventeen  hundred 
miles  long.  And  this  vast  line  of  frontier  was  exposed  to  invasions  by 
Indians,  Mexicans,  both  hostile,  and  was  therefore  fortified  and  garri- 
soned by  sixteen  forts  and  posts  of  all  arms,  at  varying  distances  from 
each  other,  and  as  far  as  six  hundred  and  seventy-five  miles  from  San 
Antonio,  their  head-quarters,  from  which  they  were  all  supplied,  and 
through  which,  going  or  coming,  they  were  all  compelled  to  march. 
You  shall  presently  see  when  conspiracy  and  treason  got  into  their  work, 
how  they  were  helped  along,  by  all  those  conditions.  But  let  us — once  for 
all — insert  here  a  nota  bene  about  that  ugly  word — "  Treason."  Our  cau- 
tion is  this  :  On  the  one  hand,  let  us  not  be  impelled  by  passion  into 
passionate  or  figurative  epithets.  And. on  the  other,  let  us  not  be  de- 
terred by  fear,  or  pity,  or  policy,  from  calling  things  by  their  right  names, 
in  strictest  logic  and  strictest  Jaw.  As  for  my  single  self-(absolutely 
unrestrained  by  partisan,  or  sectional  predilections,  or  prejudices  of  any 
kind  or  degree,  and  swayed  no  more  from  the  one  fixed,  narrow,  Polar 
line  of  utterly  impartial  history,  than  every  man  must  be,  whose  heart- 
beats are  for  his  whole  country  alone)ras  for  my  single  self,  I  must  avow 
these  truths — viz.:  That,  so  far,  from  considering  the  great  body  of  the 
Southern  people,  who  were  actually  engaged,  whether  civilly  or  militar- 
ily, in  that  dreadful  War  of  Rebellion  as  traitors,  I  do  deem  them,  in  the 
Court  of  Morals,  to  have  been  upon  just  as  high  and  pure  a  plane  as 
we  were.  They  acted  upon  their  own  convictions  of  right,  under  their 
own  educations,  and  as  environed  by  their  own  peculiar  and  irremova- 
ble circumstances  of  conditions,  etc.  Moreover,  after  the  War  began 
— and  it  was  begun  with  most  Satanic  cunning,  for  the  express  purpose 


—  5  — 

of  creating  that  very  necessity,— these  people,  as  individuals  and  fami- 
lies, and  as  a  section,  were  under  the  dire  necessity  of  sustaining  their 
government  de facto,  and  of  resisting  ours  and  their  government  dejure. 
So  mingled  a  web  is  this  which  we  call  human  life !  Nor  could  they  of 
the  South,  nor  you  of  the  North,  nor  any  other  people  of  any  part  of 
this  our  mundane  sphere,  have  acted  differently.  This  question  of  guilt 
or  innocence,  therefore,  in  a  Court  of  Morals,  becomes  for  each  individ- 
ual a  purely  personal  matter.  "  What  were  the  motives  which  governed 
his  actions?"  If  these  were  honest  and  sincere,  the  issue  is  settled. 
The  disunionest  Rebel  was  just  as  good  a  man  (not  a  citizen)  as  was 
the  unionest  Patriot. 

But  for  all  this,  on  the  other  hand,  we  must  not,  in  our  gushes  of 
benevolence,  or  of  unselfishness,  confound  different  things.  In  spite  of 
all  those  general  truths,  there  was  before,  and  leading  to,  that  Rebel- 
lion many  instances  of  treason  and  traitors,  pure  and  simple.  That, 
compared  to  the  vast  numbers  of  the  honestly  deluded  and  of  the  iron- 
chained  necessitous,  these  cases  were  very  few,  is  most  true.  Still,  the 
fact  remains  the  same.  In  that  vast  political  party,  which  agitated 
those  dangerous  questions  that  led  to  the  Rebellion  and  its  war ;  among 
the  many  active  spirits,  who  deliberately  laid  that  train  and  fired  the 
fuse  of  rebellion  ;  and,  indeed,  in  the  actual  armies  of  battle  and  siege 
of  the  eventual  Confederacy,  there  must  have  been,  and  there  were  al- 
most infinitely,  varying  degrees  of  personal  innocence  and  guilt.  And 
amongst  them  all,  there  were  not  a  few  actual  mala  fide  traitors.  And  of 
these  treasons  and  traitors,  I  intend  to  talk  awhile  this  evening,  and 
very  plainly,  too.  Since  the  year  A.  D.  1860,  I  have,  indeed,  discarded 
all  restraints,  or  darkening  circumlocutions  of  speech,  about  our  public 
affairs. 

Resuming  our  thread  of  unlucky  conditions;  in  the  third  place,  the 
Texans  had  much  less  of  union  sentiment  in  their  biographies,  as  their 
State  had  much  more  of  separateness  in  their  geography,  commerce, 
and  history  than  had  the  citizens  of  the  other  States  of  the  United 
States.  The  latter  had  never  owed,  owned,  felt,  nor  imagined  any 
other  bonds  than  those  of  loyalty  to  the  one  grand  "014.  flag  of  our 
fathers."  But  from  their  beginnings,  under  Austin  in  1820,  and  Hous- 
ton in  1836,  many  of  them  had  voluntarily  expatriated  themselves,  or 
had  been  expatriated  by  stress  of  our  pursuing  writs  of  law,  criminal 
and  civil,  to  take  and  to  profess  a  foreign  citizenship.  Indeed,  in  that 
critical  period,  from  the  repeal  of  the  Missouri  Compromise,  which  be- 
gan the  War,  to  the  fire  upon  Fort  Sumter,  which  was  the  War  itself, 
the  ties  of  legal  obligation  to  the  Union  and  the  love  for  the  Union 
were  very  feeble  forces  upon  many,  if  not  the  most,  of  the  leading  men 
of  Texas. 

Such,  then,  being  the  inducements  and  opportunities  of  Texans,  as 


—  6- 

individuals  and  as  a  State,  to  embark  into  this  new  adventure  and  en- 
terprise of  Secession  and  its  War,  let  us  now  observe ; — Why  and  how 
they  proceeded  in  it  ? 

It  is  very  natural,  and,  perhaps,  therefore,  a  very  common  habitude 
of  historians,  to  be  looking  very  far  around  and  very  deeply  down  in 
their  explorations  for  the  causes  of  all  great  natural  or  world-wide 
events,  whether  of  wars,  migrations,  revolutions,  or  reformations,  and 
the  like.  And,  in  general,  doubtless,  great  events  do  owe  their  origin 
and  accomplishment  to  wide  and  deep  truths  for  their  causes.  But 
every  general  law,  however  great,  must  have  its  exceptions.  And  our 
Rebellion  is  in  the  category  of  the  exceptions.  The  philosophy  of  his- 
tory -hates  dreadfully  to  admit  that  Alexander  the  Great  died  of  bad 
whiskey ;  that  George  Washington,  accidentally  escaping  those  famous 
point-blank  bullets  at  Braddock's  Defeat,  and  the  multitudinous  other 
hair-breadth  escapes  between  Cambridge  and  Yorktown,  died  actually 
of  a  sore  throat;  that  many  a  "tall  admiral,"  of  huge  and  glorious  frames 
and  huger  and  more  glorious  names — such  as  the  "Royal  Georges," 
the  "  Presidents,"  etc.,  etc., — have  gone  down  to  their  inglorious  graves 
in  the  ocean-valleys  from  such  contemptible  causes,  as  the  tooth  of  a 
microscopic  wormlet,  or  the  careless  heading  of  a  little  rivet.  And 
then  the  philosophy  of  theology  must  also  interpose  with  her  invariable 
theories  of  special  providence  in  grand  designs,  proportionate  to  grand 
effects.  So  the  great  dramatists,  you  remember,  always  invoked  a  God 
in  every  action  (the  Deus  exmachina] — Silenus  or  Pan,  for  the  trite  and 
ludicrous,  but  Neptune,  or  Mars,  or  Jupiter,  for  the  grand,  the  royal 
events  !  Our  theology,  having  but  one  God,  may  let  the  toothache  or  a 
ward-election  pass,  without  the  special  agency  of  that  "  First  great 
cause,  least  understood."  But,  for  the  grand  epics  of  human  life,  such  as 
the  bullet  of  a  Booth  or  a  Guiteau,  or  the  firing  on  Fort  Sumter,  or  the 
defeat  at  Bulls'  Run,  (ever  using  its  little  self  for  the  measure,  and  not 
remembering  how  infinitesimally  atomic  are  our  grandest  events,  or  ac- 
cidents, compared  to  that  one  God,) — our  philosophy  of  theology — feels 
bound  to  interpose  its  divine  design  and  agency  of  special  Providences. 

Nevertheless,  my  fellow-countrymen  of  all  classes  and  sections — 
nevertheless,  I  feel  bound  to  think,  and  to  speak  now,  as  always,  these  my 
fixed  convictions — viz.:  That  it  was  not  any  wide  and  deep  principle  in 
human  nature ;  that  it  was  no  broad  statesmanship,  not  even  broad  sec- 
tional statesmanship,  nor  even  the  interests  of  slaveholding  as  a  prop- 
erty, which  devised,  plotted,  and  finally  accomplished  that  conspiracy, 
rebellion  and  war.  They  were  the  mere  partisan,  office-seeking  politi- 
cians (the  wormlets  of  our  National  dry-rot),  in  their  contemptible 
scheme  of  selfish,  sectional  and  "partisan"  aggrandizements  in  mere 
office-holding,  who  contrived  and  did  it  all.  That  they  used  the  other 
elements  of  sectional  jealousy  and  slaveholder-pride  to  gain  voices  for 


—  7  — 

their  measures  is  very  true.  But  it  is  a  very  certain  and  very  wonder 
ful  truth,  that  their  constituency  in  the  Southern  States  was  mainly  ob- 
tained from  the  non-slaveholders,  their  "poor  white  trash,"  and  from 
their  horde  of  reckless  political  adventurers.  As  a  class,  the  former 
were  opposed  to  all  revolutionary  processes,  as  well  in  Mississippi  as  in 
Texas  and  everywhere  else,  except  in  South  Carolina.  In  Mississippi, 
for  example,  the  line  between  State  and  national  sovereignties,  sec- 
tional and  national  patriotism,  as  a  preparation  for  this  scheme,  was 
most  notably,  if  not  first,  drawn.  It  was  in  the  great  campaign  just  be- 
fore the  Presidential  election  between  Jefferson  Davis  and  Henry  S. 
Foote.  These  candidates,  both  Democrats,  but  wide  apart  as  the  poles, 
were  great  debaters.  Amongst  other  questions  which  they  discussed 
over  the  State,  I  remember  was,  in  substance,  this :  To  which  author- 
ity, State  or  National,  is  the  obligation  of  the  citizen  primarily  due? 
Against  which,  primarily,  can  treason  be  committed?"  Now,  with  such 
issues  as  these,  so  ventilated  and  enlightened,  Foote  obtained  the  votes 
of,  I  think,  about  seven-tenths  of  all  the  Slavocracy.  Davis,  with  all 
his  great  natural  powers  and  marvellous  mental  graces  and  accomplish- 
ments, represented,  besides  his  politician  class,  all  the  "rag,  tag  and 
bobtail"  of  the  regular,  olden  Democracy. 

-There  were  in  the  Presidential  campaign  of  1860.  you  remember, 
three  sets  of  candidates;  and  loud  and  frequent  menaces  of  disunion, 
and  preparations  for  disunion  were  made,  by  organizing  and  drilling 
military  bodies,  and  by  supplying  them  with  arms  and  munitions  of  war. 
And  these  menaces,  both  of  the  talk  and  the  print,  and  the  preparations 
of  conspiracy  and  treason  were  made  before,  and  long  months  before 
that  election. 

And  now  I  aver,  as  my  solemn  belief,  after  careful  and  painful  ob- 
servation at  the  time  and  on  the  spot,  that  not  one  man  can  be  now  dis- 
covered on  trustworthy  testimony  to  have  so  talked  or  so  conspired,  who 
voted  either  for  Bell  and  Everett,  or  for  Douglass  and  Johnson.  They 
were  (those  fire-eaters  of  that  fearful  campaign)  all  unanimously  of  one 
political  party  and  ticket.  And  so  the  Rebellion  was  therefore  plotted, 
and  the  war  was  initiated  by  "merest  politicians  in  merest  politics.  Ac- 
cursed politics:  and  politicians!"  This  was  my  faith,  published  then 
and  there,  in  November,  1860.  And  it  was  and  is  the  truth. 

I  went  to  Texas  as  an  explorer  for  favoring  climate  and  occupation, 
to  cure  abranchial  affection,  I  think,  in  the  winter  or  spring  of  1858, 
I  was  delighted,  if  not  enchanted,  with  my  visit,  in  all  things  save  one. 
I  saw,  or  thought  I  saw,  a  painful  apathy,  and  in  a  few  instances,  an 
open  hatred  towards  the  Union.  I  removed  to  Texas  in  1859,  with  my 
stallions,  as  a  horse-breeder.  At  Galveston,  Indianola,  Corpus  Christi, 
Victoria,  and  Goliad,  where  I  was  cormorant  awhile,  I  not  only  thought 
I  saw,  but  as  the  campaign  afterwards  waxed  warmer,  I  did  see  and 


g 

hear  not  only  convincing  proofs  of  that  apathy  and  hatred  toward  the 
Union,  but  the  evident  tracks  of  an  active  conspiracy  leading  toward 
open  rebellion.  I  discovered  ihese  movements  in  the  organization  and 
action  of  a  treasonable  association.  I  repeat  the  word  "treasonable," 
with  its  fit  adjectives,  pure  and  simple,  logical  and  legal,  deliberate  and 
of  malice  prepense!  This  body  was  the  "  Knights  of  the  Golden  Cir- 
cle," commonly  known  by  their  initials  of  "  K.  G.  C's." 

Now,  why  did  I  not  at  once  sell  or  give  away  my  horse-menada, 
and  fly  from  such  a  people  and  such  dangers  ?  I  can  not  tell.  I  think 
I  must  have  been  very  much  of  an  idiot  for  not  fleeing,  as  Lot  fled  from 
Sodom.  I  had,  by  strange  chance,  a  splendid  opportunity  for  with- 
drawing from  such  a  commitment  of  my  future  fortunes.  As  it  concerns 
my  narrative,  at  least,  so  far  as  to  not  only  to  indicate  my  then  political 
status  and  its  opportunities  for  observing,  but  especially  my  personal 
relations  and  predilections  toward  the  leaders  of  that  great  party,  and 
the  consequent  impartiality  of  this  my  testimony,  I  will  state  it. 

It  was  at  Goliad,  shortly  after  my  arrival  in  Texas,  that  I  received, 
through  Hon.  Joseph  Holt,  Postmaster-General,  President  Buchanan's 
offer  to  me,  of  the  office  of  Assistant  Secretary  of  State,  vice  Appleton, 
who  had  been  appointed  Minister  Plenipotentiary  to  Russia ;  and  with 
it  came  a  curious  intimation  in  the  Secretary's  private  letter,  that  this 
office  was  a  more  honorable  one  than  it  might  seem,  because  of  the  age 
and  infirmities  of  the  Secretary  of  State,  Hon.  Lewis  Cass.  He  proved 
himself  in  the  event  to  be  infirm  only  in  and  toward  treason.  He  was 
as  true  a  Union  Patriot  as  ever  lived  in  all  these  troublous  times  and 
scenes — clarum  et  venerabile  nomen! 

But  why  I  did  not  snatch  at  this,  such  a  chance  to  grasp  honors 
and  to  escape  privations,  dangers,  shame,  perhaps  death,  I  can  not  ex- 
plain. I  am  hopeful.  Did  I  hope  for  success  to  the  Union  cause,  even 
in  Texas  ?  I  am  not  (I  flatter  myself)  given  to  panics  overmuch.  Did 
I  despise  the .  dangers  from  these  talks,  and  newspaper  menaces  and 
base  obvious  conspiracies?  I  was  under  personal  obligation,  or  in  most 
friendly  relations,  to  the  President,  to  General  Cass,  to  Colonel  Holt,  to 
John  B.  Floyd,  to  John  C.  Breckenridge,  and  sundry  others  of  both 
sections  of  the  dominant  party ;  and  I  was  quite  banished  from  that 
great  body  of  Whigs,  which  had  organized  themselves  as  the  Republi- 
can party.  I  was,  nevertheless,  very  decidedly  in  favor  of  the  defeat  of 
the  Regular,  or  Breckinridge-Democrats  and  in  favor  of  (I  can  not 
say  hopeful  of)  the  success  of  Bell  and  Everett,  or  in  lieu  of  that 
ticket,  of  Douglass  and  Johnson.  Although  retired  from  open,  and 
much  more  from  active,  politics,  was  I,  nevertheless,  restrained  by  my 
conscious  fear  that  I  could  not  act  honestly  in  harmony  with  Mr.  Buch- 
anan's administration  ?  These  speculations  are  now  vain,  if  not  super- 
fluous. I  can  not  now  explain  my  motives.  It  is  only  necessary  to  add 


-9— 

that,  by  return  mail,  I  respectfully  declined  this  high  honor,  and  there- 
upon William  H.  Treshoim  was  duly  appointed  in  my  stead. 

What  the  differences  to  the  Union  and  to  Disunion  causes,  respec- 
tively, were  or  would  have  been,  in  case  I  had  become  the  incum- 
bent of  this  office,  instead  of  this  South  Carolina  Democrat,  it  may 
be  difficult  to  fix.  He  was,  by  the  way,  probably  the  most  accom- 
plished scholar  in  the  law  of  nations,  who  ever  held  that  or  even  the 
chief  office  of  the  Department.  But  as  he  had  been  for,  at  least  a  de- 
cade before,  a  most  active  and  virulent  plotter  for  Secession,  and  was 
reasonably  believed  to  have  been,  together  with  Judge  John  A.  Camp- 
bell, of  Alabama,  a  go-between  of  Floyd  and  the  open  seceders,  it  is 
safe  enough  to  say,  that  in  my  case,  General  Cass  and  the  Union  cause 
would  have  been  spared  that  treacherous  work  by  their  humble  servant. 

On  my  arrival  at  Cincinnati,  I  found  another  letter  from  Colonel 
Holt,  to  my  brother  Larz,  urging  him  to  press  my  acceptance  and  en- 
closing another  tender  of  this  office.  But  I  again  refused  it.  On  what 
little  things,  as  causes,  do  hang  the  biggest  consequences  ?  Who  can 
now  say,  that  if  this  persistent,  perhaps,  foolish  rejection  of  this  import- 
ant office,  by  an  unimportant  man,  had  been  accepted,  that  Fort  Sum- 
ter  would  have  ever  become  historical  ?  It  is  utterly  impossible  to  be- 
lieve that  ever  1  could  have  been  other  than  a  zealot  for  the  Union  in 
that  or  any  other  office  or  position.  For  Washington's  Farewell  Ad- 
dress and  Jackson's  Proclamation  were  and  are  to  me  my  law  and  my 
religion.  What  "Coke  upon  Littleton  was  to  the  old  lawyer;  what 
Paul's  epistles  to  the  Hebrews  and  Romans  are  to  the  Calvinists  ;  were 
and  are  these  revered  documents  to  my  political  faith  !  Any  of  you 
who  know  me,  know  how  absurd  it  is  to  expect  me  to  keep  silent  or  still 
about  any  of  my  passions.  And  this  Union-love  was  and  is  to  me  the 
most  ruling  passion  of  my  life.  Now,  then,  do  any  of  you  believe, 
with  such  experience  of  the  Anderson-intractibility  in  the  Disunion 
lines  in  which  Floyd,  as  Secretary  of  War,  was  then  setfuously  plow- 
ing, that  he  would  have  given  the  order  (asked  by  General  Scott) 
consigning  my  brother  to  the  command  of  Charleston  Harbor?  I  must 
say  1  do  not.  Dear,  beloved,  honored  Robert !  I  claim  nothing  what- 
ever of  any  influences  over  his  principles  or  his  conduct  in  Sumter 
or  elsewhere;  and,  without  mock  modesty,  I  confess  that  he  was  as 
much  my  superior,  by  nature  and  in  culture,  as  he  was  as  a  patriot  sol- 
dier, gentleman  and  Christian.  In  all  these  characteristics,  he  excelled 
me  (myself  being  the  judge)  as  much  as  one  brother  can  well  surpass 
another  who  is  not  a  disgrace  to  their  family.  Nevertheless,  I  do  be- 
lieve (such  are  the  accidents  of  this  our  life!  )  if  I  had  accepted  this 
office,  that  Major  Anderson  would  never  have  been  assigned  to  Fort 
Moultrie  by  that  Secretary  of  War,  John  B.  Floyd.  The  fact  is,  that 
this  functionary  made  the  mistake  of  simply  assuming,  without  inquiry 


10 

or  personal  knowledge  of  him,  that  my  brother,  like  so  many  Southern 
officers,  would  readily  desert  uhe  old  flag,  either  from  sectional  and  par 
tisan  zeal,  or  personal  corruptness.  That  another  Southern  officer  would 
have  been  sent  there  by  Floyd  is  most  certain  ;  and  that  such  other 
Southern  sympathizer — (for,  let  us  have  no  nonsense  about  it,  my 
brother  did,  most  tenderly,  sympathize,  as  I  did,  with  the  Southern  peo- 
ple, especially  with  their  women  and  children)  ;-that  this  other  Southern 
officer  would  have  behaved  in  that  post  of  duty,  as  he  did,  any  of  you 
may  believe,  if  you  can.  Again  I  simply  insist,  I  can  not.  To  return  at 
last  from  this  digression. 

In  the  spring  or  summer  of  1859,  the  gubernatorial  election  was  be- 
ginning to  stir  the  Texan  mind.  The  Democratic  Convention,  early  in 
1859,  "  nominated  a  State  ticket,  pledged  to  favor  the  reopening  of  the 
African  Slave  Trade,"  which  was,  as  Mr.  Greeley  says,  "a  well-under- 
stood shibboleth  of  the  South-western  plotters  of  Disunion  ;"  and  here 
let  me  say,  that  this  most  infamous  of  all  trades  or  institutions  of  earth 
or  hell  was  then  actually  reopened  in  Texas  !  At  least,  two  ship-loads 
of  manacled  slaves,  direct  from  Africa,  were  landed — the  one  near  Gal- 
veston  and  the  other  near  Indianola — and  hundreds  of  these  poor  jab- 
bering barbarians  were,  then  and  thereupon,  sold  and  distributed  over 
the  State.  Nor  was  all  this  done  under  a  curtain.  The  whole  State 
knew  it,  and,  doubtless,  our  Cabinet  at  Washington  knew  it  as  well  as 
did  all  we  Texans. 

Governor  Runnells,  who  had  defeated  General  Houston  before,  was 
the  candidate  for  reelection  on  this  platform.  Mr.  Greeley  thinks  that 
the  "  leading  politicians  had  herein  shown  the  cloven-foot  too  soon." 
And  so,  in  one  respect,  they  had  ;  but  in  another,  and  that  the  essential, 
great  thing  of  the  general  Disunion  movement,  their  action  was  in  very 
good  season  for  it  and  them. 

For  instance  ;  I  can  not  say  that  either  this  resolution  for  reopening 
the  slave  trade,  or  its  actual  reopening  and  operation,  was  the  cause  of 
the  defeat  of  the  Breckinridge  or  Southern  party.  I  do  not  think  it  was 
the  cause,  or  even  much  contributed  to  that  result.  It  is  very  true  that 
there  was  much  hot  indignation  about  it.  I  know,  for  example,  that  for 
one  fanatic  (famtics,  they  pronounced  the  word  there),  I  quarreled  an- 
grily with  my  nearest  neighbor  and  one  of  my  best  friends  on  this  sub- 
ject. He  was  an  Irish  gentleman,  who,  with  his  brother,  had  been  many 
years  mining  silver  at  Guanaxuato  in  Mexico.  He  had  never  owned 
a  slave  in  his  life,  unless  you  may  so  term  his  peons.  But  in  the  few 
months  he  had  lived  in  Texas,  he  had  become,  like  most  of  his  country- 
men, an  earnest  Southern  Rights  and  pro-slavery  man. 

I  had  with  two  other  fanatics — fools,  let  us  now  say — tried  to 
get  up  a  company  of  new  Texas  rangers,  to  march  down  to  the  nearest 
slave-ship,  to  cut  the  throat  of  every  pirate  aboard,  to  scuttle  their  ship, 


—  II  — 

and  so  to  set  all  their  Ebon-prisoners  free.  Sublime  philanthropy  ? 
If  victorious,  what  next  ?  Where  to  go  ?  What  to  do  ?  What  to 
eat?  Their  first  dinner?  Whence?  What?  Whom?  etc.,  etc. 
These  were  questionings  which  our  emotional  indignation  scorned 
to  ask !  But  when  I  proposed  my  raid  to  my  friend  and  neigh- 
bor, Mr.  Meade,  and  when  he  swore  (his  face  all  flushed  with  the 
richest  of  pinks,  and,  in  brogue — tones  more  fluent  and  musical  than 
General  Scott's  poetic  Irish  votes)  that  he  would  raise  a  "  regiment  of 
the  real  Texas  rangers  to  follow^and  thrash  us  on  the  way" — then  my 
reasoning  powers  suddenly  returned  and  my  indignation  quietly  gushed 
itself  out  into  more  regular  and  milder  pulsations.  For  I  saw  he  was  in 
earnest,  and  I  knew  he  would  do  it! 

The  reason  why  that  party  was  defeated  at  the  polls  was  this  merely, 
viz :  The  great  body  of  the  people,  especially  the  leading  slaveholders 
and  leading  business  men,  were  then  most  sound  in  their  patriotism, 
and  were  much  alarmed  and  indignant  at  this  premeditated  action  of 
the  reigning  party.  And  it  was  only  premature,  because  the  great 
agency  in  that  movement,  and  party  of  disunion,  the  "  K.  G.  C's,"  did. 
in  truth,  attain  to  the  depth  of  prostituting  a  majority  of  the  Texas 
people  to  their  disunion  scheme.  But  they  did  acquire  sufficient 
numbers  with  their  organized  action  and  its  swift  successes,  to  push  the 
unconscious  great  majority  over  that  precipice.  You  shall  better  under- 
stand this  case  as  we  proceed  in  the  narrative. 

The  campaign  waxed  hot.  For  Sam.  Houston — he  of  San  Jacinto — 
had  entered  the  lists  independently,  and  flung  down  his  gage  of  battle, 
— "  the  Union  and  the  constitution  forever."  I  attended  several  of  his 
meetings,  and  I  must  say,  that  though  I  have  heard  many  much  greater 
orators,  I  never  did  hear  one  so  effective  in  a  cause  and  before  audien- 
ces like  his,  in  all  my  life.  And  whether,  in  or  after  the  exposition  of 
his  doctrine  ("the  doctrines  of  the  fathers,"  he  would  always  say,)  it 
became  in  place  to  mention  the  name  of  a  cotemporary  and  adverse 
actor  in  this  great  drama,  for  comparison  or  contrast,  he  would  shout  it 
right  out,  in  most  derisive  scorn  of  epithet  or  tone,  generally  ludicrous 
or  viturperative.  For  instance,  after  a  portrait  of  Jefferson  or  Jackson, 
particularly  of  Jackson,  he  would  say  something  of  this  import  and 
style,  viz.:  "Now  here  gets  up  this  Wig-fall,  a  drunken  blather-skite 
from  South  Carolina,  to  teach  us  the  constitution  and  the  morals  of  pat- 
riotism;"  or,  again,  "This  Kite,  or  Keit,  or  Kit,  or  whatever  his  name 
is;"  or,  "This  fellow  with  a  tongue,  this  murderer,  this  assassin  of  his 
poor  old  mother's  honest,  helpless  husband,  this  gallows  bird,  this 
Yancy,  is  another  professor  of  law  and  order  and  constitutional  gov- 
ernment and  decency, !•'  and  so  on  for  the  rest  of  the  disunion  leaders, 
whenever  their  names  emerged  or  could  be  dragged  to  the  surface  of 
discussion.  Yet,  of  this  man  it  pleases  Mr.  Greeley  to  say,  in  history  : 


—  12  — 

"Had  he  evinced  either  principle  or  courage,  General  Houston  was  thus 
in  a  position  to  thwart  the  T^xan  conspiracy  at  the  outset."  But  allow 
me  to  say  (with  many  more  and  better  chances  for  observation  than 
Mr.  Greeley  had) :  First.  That  he  was  in  no  such  position.  Second. 
That  a  truer  Union  man  did  not  then  breathe  our  vital  air  than  Sam. 
Houston.  Third.  And  as  for  courage  (though  I  am  no  believer  in  the 
frequent  assertion  that  any  sane  mind  ever  existed  without  fear),  yet 
I  do  say  :  that  of  all  men  I  ever  saw  encompassed  by  dangers  and 
frightful  enemies,  Sam.  Houston  was,  perhaps,  the  nearest  to  being  that 
man  "  who  knows  not  fear."  And  as  to  the  nature  or  degrees  of  those 
dangers  and  enemies,  it  must  not  be  forgotten,  amongst  other  and  like 
things,  that  the  Hon.  Alfred  Iverson,  Senator  of  Georgia,  was  thus 
speaking  of  Governor  Houston  and  of  these  very  scenes,  when  he  said : 
' '  and  if  he  will  not  yield  to  that  public  sentiment,  some  Texan  Brutus 
may  arise  to  rid  his  country  of  this  old,  hoary- headed  traitor.  (Great 
"sensation.")  Moreover,  I  aver  that  he  did  all  that  could  possibly 
have  been  done  for  our  and  his  great  cause.  For  he  had  extraor- 
dinary qualities,  in  addition  to  great  zeal,  great  courage,  and  a  fine 
intellect  in  general  for  revolutionary  times,  and  scenes,  and  actions. 
He  was  as  cunning  as  a  fox,  and  as  cool  and  self-possessed  as  a 
white  marble  statue  of  Cato.  That  in  the  result,  his  patriotism,  courage, 
and  wonderful  address  in  revolutions  were  all  brought  to  naught  by 
overwhelming  and  various  adverse  influences ;  that  he  sank  under  the 
mortification  of  seeing  his  worst  enemies  and  the  enemies  of  the  Union 
he  so  loved  "flourish  in  bloody  treason  over  us;"  that  he  was  swiftly 
and  ignominiously  and  most  lawlessly  deposed  from  his  office  in  old 
age  and  poverty,  and  (keenest  pang  of  all)  that,  too,  in  the  twofold 
shame  of  an  unjust,  cruel  ingratitude  from  both  the  traitors  and  the  pat- 
riots :  that  he  went  out  of  life  in  the  consciousness  that  he  had  been 
cheated  out  of  his  true  place  in  history  ;  that  he  suffered  the  more  bitter 
grief  to  see  his  own  and  only  sons,  and  the  Benjamin  of  his  old  age, 
too,  with  all  the  other  bright  youth  of  the  country,  enlisted  under  the 
banners  of  rebellion,  parental  and  national — all  these  sad  results  are 
undeniable.  Still,  and  nevertheless,  all  these  disasters  followed  from 
no  fault  of  his,  either  in  design  or  even  of  execution. 

Let  us  again  understand  each  other  here.  I  admire  Horace  Greeley 
as  much  as  any  of  you.  At  least,  I  consider  him  to  be  far  the  greatest 
man  of  his  great  class  in  American  history — the  press  gang.  A  close 
observer,  a  most  experienced  editor  and  politician,  an  indefatigable 
worker,  with  extraordinary  memory,  an  admirable  writer,  quick  in  his 
perceptions,  rather  deep  in  his  observations  and  reflections,  he  was, 
withall,  as  bold  a  man  to  censure,  and  as  just,  and  honest,  and  kindly  a 
man  to  retract  as  ever  in  troublous  times  edited  a  political  paper  or 
wrote  a  history  of  contemporary  events  and  actors.  Have  I  praised 


—  13  — 

him  enough  to  please  you  and  to  qualify  myself  for  this  witness-stand  ? 
No  ?  Then  I  add  :  that  I  still  think  it  a  great  calamity  that  he,  just  he, 
Horace  Greeley,  was  not  elected  out  President  in  1872.  I  was  in  that 
canvass,  exactly  where  my  saying  or  doing  or  writing  amounted  to  just 
nothing  at  all.  For  what  is  the  sense  or  use  of  trying  to  row  up  the 
chute  of  Niagara  Falls  in  a  birch  bark  canoe,  with  a  feather  for  a  pad- 
dle ?  But,  all  the  rowing  I  did  at  that  election  was  for  Horace  Greeley 
as  our  President.  Notwithstanding  these  estimates,  dispositions,  and 
commitments  toward  Horace  Greeley,  I  must  still  be  allowed  to  think 
and  say  that  he  made  many  great  mistakes.  This  was  one  of  them. 
His  "On  to  Richmond"  tocsin  was  another,  and  his  comparison  of 
Winfield  Scott  to  David  E.  Twiggs  was  the  worst  of  all. 

At  this  election,  August,  1859,  " 'n  by  ^ar  lne  largest  vote  ever  yet 
polled  in  the  State"  (you  see  how  we  Texans  were  aroused  by  this  life 
and  death  issue  for  the  Union  of  our  fathers),  Houston,  the  indepen- 
dent, beat  the  secessionist  Runnels  by  a  majority  of  8,670  Votes.  Let 
it  be  here  noted,  however,  that  this  victory  for  the  Union  cause  by  no 
means  secured  the  official  organism  of  the  State  government  to  our 
uses.  On  the  contrary,  that  remained  pretty  much  wholly  in  the  dis- 
union interest.  And  the  majority  in  each  branch  of  the  legislature  was 
adverse  to  the  new  Governor  and  to  the  old  Union.  And  just  here 
begins  the  error  of  Mr.  Greeley  and  the  other  Union  historians  who 
follow  him,  viz  :  That  Governor  Houston's  election  gave  him  the  power 
to  suppress  or  circumvent  this  plotting  treason. 

I  shall  give  few  details  in  party  events  of  that  dreary,  dreary  summer 
of  1860.  It  was  to  me  the  very  gloomiest,  most  wretched  year  of  all  my 
life.  No  time  of  the  actual  war — not  even  that  blackest  year  of  all  the 
years  of  human  history — from  the  middle  of  1862  to  the  middle  of  1863, 
from  our  retreat  from  the  peninsula  to  our  victory  at  Gettysburg,  and  to 
our  capture  of  Vicksburg,  when  the  scales  hung  so  doubtfully,  but  ever 
inclining  against  the  success  of  the  Union  cause,  was  so  black  to  me  as 
was  that  year.  For,  in  it,  I  saw  only  the  busy  preparations  for  public 
treason,  tyranny,  and  war  on  the  one  hand,  and  the  sleeping  and  inno- 
cent unconsciousness  of  patriotism,  liberty,  and  peace  on  the  other;  and 
then,  in  the  depths  of  my  despair,  was  ever  imagining  the  result  of  a 
conflict  so  unequal.  If,  my  friends,  ladies  and  gentlemen,  you  can, 
at  this  late  day,  bring  yourselves  into  a  sympathetic  realization  of  the 
probability-4be  the  coolly  reasonable  probability — of  the  dangers  of  mur- 
ders, arsons,  and  worse  crimes,  to  which  all  our  countrywomen — those 
refined,  pure,  noble  southern  women — and  all  their  children  were  to  be 
exposed,  with  their  fathers,  husbands,  brothers,  and  lovers  all  "absent  in 
the  wars,"  and  no  males  around  or  near  them,  except  the  semi-savage, 
the  semi-brutal  slaves,  whom  we  had  ever  so  long,  so  unjustly,  so 
cruelly  wronged,  you  will  the  better  comprehend  my  state  of  mind  in 


Texas  and  my  brother's  in  Fort  Sumter.  Oh !  my  countrymen,  was 
there  ever  a  National  delusion  so  base  as  to  hazard  such  peril,  or  ever, 
ever  in  all  history  such  meek r ess  and  mercy  and  forbearance  shown  on 
earth  as  was  in  the  event  exhibited  by  these  African  slaves  throughout 
that  whole  war  ?  May  God  spare  me  the  curse  of  surviving  to  the  endur- 
ance, again,  of  such  days  of  corroding  cares,  such  long,  long  nights  of 
sleepless  horrors  as  made  up  that  awful  twelve  months  between  our 
Texas  election-victory  of  1859  and  tne  outbreak  of  the  Rebellion,  on 
the  ifih  of  November,  1860. 

I  am  poor  at  philosophising  at  best,  and  what  were  the  further 
causes  of  this  difference  in  my  own  unhappiness,  within  the  so  different 
periods,  I  am  as  unable  to  guess  as  any  one  of  you.  Whether  it  was 
because  the  rebellion  and  the  war  had  then  and  there  become  to  me 
(being  now  behind  their  scenes)  as  much  certainties  as  if  I  had  seen 
diem  going  on — whether  it  was  that  our  vague  imaginings  of  grief  to 
come  are  often  more  horrific  than  what  they  shall  be  when  experienced 
in  action — whether  it  was  because,  when  the  explosion  actually  burst,  I 
(a  mere  witness  and  speculator  before),  plunged  into  the  struggle  as 
soon  and  as  far  as  I  could,  and,  with  comrades  like  you,  God  bless  them, 
became  a  positive  actor  in  the  scenes  of  counter-conspiracy  and  war ; 
and  so,  being  pre-occupied  in  all  my  thinkings,  doings,  and  sympa- 
thizings  in  each  present  scene  or  act  as  it  arose,  had  no  time  to  be  nour- 
ishing fears  or  dreams  about  the  general  future,  or  whether  it  was 
each  or  any  of  these  speculative  causes,  or  still  some  others,  which 
caused  "this  difference  to  me,"  I  can  not  decide.  But  of  this  truth  be 
assured:  Those  parts  of  1859-60,  of  somewhat  more  than  a  year, 
although  passed  in  the  midst  of  a  climate,  avocation  and  society 
otherwise  the  most  delightful  of  aU  my  experience,  was  to  me  by 
far  the  most  unhappy  of  any  other  equal  period  of  my  existence. 
I  think  I  will  not  exaggerate  if  I  superadd  that  this  period  had,  within 
its  brief  limits,  more  of  real  misery  than  all  my  other  life  besides. 

Upon  the  election  of  Mr.  Lincoln,  events — positive  events — emerged 
into  public  view  most  swiftly  and  portentously.  To  us,  at  San  Antonio 
(remember,  it  was  the  head-quarters  of  our  army  department),  the  first 
a  call,  published  the  day  after  the  news  of  "Lin- 


coln's election,"  for  a  meeting  of  the  Breckenridge  and  Lane  voters  on 
the  24th  day  of  November,  at  the  Alamo,  in  San  Antonio,  to  take  action 
for  the  secession  of  the  State.  Within  a  few  days,  perhaps,  in  order  to 
implicate  others  in  this  conspiracy,  a  new  hand-bill  was  issued,  addressed 
to  mtt the  citizens  of  Behar  county,  without  regard  to  party.  You  must 
now  learn  bow  I,  for  one,  became  thus  implicated  in  that  celebrated 
movement  of  secession.  On  the  morning  of  that  24th  I  rode  into 
town,  upon  some  personal  business,  and,  as  usual  I  went  to  the  store  of 
my  friend,  Mr.  Caldwell,  at  the  time  and  ever  before  a  firm  and  zealous 


—  15  — 

unionist.  He,  with  other  by-standers  (the  whole  town  was  astir  in  public 
passion),  asked  me  at  once  if  I  did  not  intend  to  come  in,  to  speak  at 
this  meeting  ?  Having  only  seen  the  first  or  Breckenridge  hand-bill,  I 
replied  somewhat  thus  :  "  I  am,  my  friends,  like  the  'pretty  fair  maid,' 
of  the  old  song.  'Nobody  asked  you,  sir,'  she  said.  'The  invitation  is  to 
the  Breckenridge  Democrats,  and  inasmuch  as  I  have  never  yet  run 
with  that  crowd,  I  must  consider  myself  '  left  out  in  the  cold  '  from  that 
delightful  'tea-party.'  "  Whereupon  my  friend  Caldwell,  or  else  Presly 
Edwards,  produced  the  amended  hand-bill,  and  at  the  same  time 
reminded  me  that,  although  I  had  repeatedly  refused  to  speak  in  either 
of  the  preceding  campaigns,  yet  I  had  as  often  promised,  that  if  after 
the  election,  any  movement  toward  disunion  should  be  made,  I  would 
be,  if  alive,  with  the  foremost  in  space  and  the  latest  in  time,  ever  with 
my  Union  comrades  in  weal  and  woe,  life  or  death.  And,  well  remem- 
bering these  solemn  pledges,  I,  therefore  agreed  to  stay  for  that  historic 
Alamo  meeting. 

It  was  the  design  and  under  the  management  of  the  K.  G.  €9  and 
its  intended  proceedings  were  perhaps  the  most  "cut  and  dried  affair " 
ever  known  amongst  the  shams  of  politics.  The  Rev.  Dr.  Boring, 
a  celebrated  and  very  able  divine  of  the  Methodist  Episcopal 
Church,  South,  was  to  open  the*  services  by  a  wise,  sober,  and  pious 
argument  of  the  questions,  constitutional,  political  and  military.  Col- 
onel Wilcox,  an  ex-member  of  Congress  from  Mississippi,  and 
soon  a  candidate  for  the  same  office  in  the  new  Confederacy,  and 
an  eloquent  stumper,  was  to  follow  with  the  usual  fire-eating  exhor- 
tations, threats,  and  promises.  Then  a  Mr.  Upson,  a  San  Antonio 
lawyer,  from  Buffalo,  N.  Y.,  was  to  conclude  the  grand  first  act  of  the 
dread  drama,  by  "out-heroding  Herod"  in  Southern  pro-slavery  gushes, 
as  was  so  usual,  wherever,  as  too  often,  a  Yankee  did  southern i/e  him- 
self in  politics.  As  for  our  counterplot,  it  was  agreed  amongst  us  that 
I  was  to  be  called  for  immediately  after  Dr.  Boring,  "to  speak  for  the 
Union."  In  the  respective  calls  which  ensued,  I  must  say  I  thought  my 
name  decidedly  in  the  minority  of  their  most  "sweet  voices."  But, 
feeling  very  sure  that  this  was  the  very  niche  (to  borrow  Mr.  Lincoln's 
figure)  for  me  to  fill  at  that  time  and  place,  I  walked  as  steadily  up  the 
ladder  as  if  it  were  my  sole  meeting.  Of  the  speech  itself,  I  shall  now 
make  but  these  comments — viz.:  That  I  would  not  have  been  permitted 
to  speak  at  all.  if  I  had  not  been  known,  or  announced  rather,  in  the 
clamor  against  my  appearance  as  being  a  Kentuckian  ;  that  the  speech 
was  not  worth  so  much  as  words  spoken,  as  for  the  thing  then  and  there 
acted  ;  that  it  was  an  act  against  the  disunion  and  for  the  union  of  the 
States,  very  positively,  openly,  and  right  boldly,  and  most  unexpectedly 
done ;  that  it  has  been  more  complimented  for  its  boldness  and  truth 
than  it  deserves.  For,  although,  I  trust,  I  am  not  habitually  addicted 


— 16  — 

much  to  either  prevarications  or  suppressions  in  my  speeches,  yet  I  did 
feel  under  the  necessity  of  tal.ing  then  and  there  certain  common  stand- 
points with  my  auditors  not  exactly  suited  to  my  own  convictions,  in  or- 
der to  gain  from  them  that  forbearance  toward  me  which  might  in.duce 
them  to  listen  further  to  my  defense  of  the  Union  cause ;  and,  finally,  I 
add,  that  the  prefatory  sentence  in  the  pamphlet  edition  (published  soon 
after  by  Colonel  Joe  Holt  and  others,  at  Washington  City)  is  mislead- 
ing. Dr.  Boring's  speech,  having  been  written  out  fully  and  read  at  the 
meeting,  was  published  in  the  first  number  of  the  Weekly  Herald  after- 
ward. I  was  asked  by  the  editor  to  write  out  mine,  which  was  purely 
extemporaneous,  for  publication.  This  I  did,  and  it  appeared,  I  be- 
lieve, in  the  succeeding  number  of  that  paper.  There  was  no  lapse  of 
time,  therefore,  for  me  to  forget  my  spoken  words.  Nor  do  I  believe 
that  there  is  essential  error,  and  surely  no  improvement,  in  the  printed 
speech. 

I  tried  to  make  it  as  true  a  report  as  I  could,  and  I  prepared  it  as 
soon  as  was  possible.  With  these  tedious  remarks  about  a  matter  so 
immaterial,  I  proceed  to  make  one  quotation  from  that  Alamo  speech. 
It  will  prove  that  I  then  believed,  and  publicly  assumed,  that  this  whole 
movement  was  one  of  mere  party  politics. 

Here  it  is.  In  allusion  to  the  exceptionable  appearance  and  posi- 
tion of. this  most  able  and  distinguished  divine  in  politics,  I  exclaimed: 

"  But  now,  alas  !  we  are  calmly  and  deliberately  assured  from  the 
pulpit  of  the  law  and  gospel — by  no  frothy,  shallow  demagogue  of  poli- 
tics— accursed  politics! — by  the  lips  and  tongue  of  a  man  really  wise, 
pious,  and  honest,  that  this  vast  fabric  has  crumbled  ;  that  'the  Union 
is  already  dissolved.'  We  are  informed,  as  a  fixed  and  certain  fact  of 
history,  that  our  national  destiny  is  fulfilled  ;  that,  like  dead  leaves  on 
the  wind,  our  institutions  have  drifted  away  into  the  past  forever ;  and 
that  we  are  not  here  assembled  to  consider  of  their  further  existence  or 
perpetuity,  but  to  divide  their  spoils  and  take  administration  of  their 
effects. 

"  Whilst  we  were  so  entertained^with  the  vast  and  various  thoughts, 
and  feelings,  and  images  of  horror  that  trooped  thronging  through  my 
brain  and  heart,  thrilling  me  with  chilliness  from  scalp  to  soles,  there 
was  always  mingled  one  sad,  yet  dreadful,  picture — the  children  of  one 
loving  mother — a  mother  hale  and  well,  though  not  happy,  with  the 
bloom  yet  in  her  fair  cheeks  ;  the  love-light  in  her  calm  eyes  ;  a  grey 
hair,  only  here  and  there,  silvering  with  a  single  thread  her  radiant 
lock ;  God  bless  the  mother  that  bore  us  !--and  the  daughters  born  of 
such  a  mother,  circling  in  a  conclave  over  a  plot  of  matricide,  and  "the 
parting  of  her  raiments  amongst  them !"  And*yet,  in  all  this  mingled 
tide  of  sudden  and  new  emotions,  whilst  he  so  calmly  spoke,  there  came 
to  me  no  flush  of  fiery  anger ;  no  choking  from  bursting  indignation  ; 


—  17  — 

no  throb  for  instant  vengeance.  A  deep  and  bitter  grief,  a  most  melt- 
ing pity  and  sadness,  filled  me,  until  I  thought  I  could  weep — weep  tears 
of  blood to  see  such  treason  in  such  men." 

And  again,  in  another  branch  of  the  topic,  occurs  this  passage  : 
"And  is  this  forever  to  be  so?  Must  the  true,  permanent  and  invaluable 
interests  of  the  'Southern  people — their  lands,  their  slaves,  their  prop- 
erty, personal  and  public,  their  peace,  their  patriotism,  all,  all — be 
forever  thus  made  a  sacrifice  to  mere  politii  i^w^,  for  the  sole  benefit  of 
merest  politicians?  Will  our  Southern  statesmen  (for  we  have  yet  a 
few  statesmen  left  us)  thus  always  continue  to  devote  all  their  faculties 
and  energies  to  the  single  end  of  propagating  the  faith  of  slavery  for 
its  diffusion  as  a  political  institution,  and  in  soils  and  climates,  where 
neither  '  King  Cotton*  nor  'Queen  Sugar '  can  ever  reign  or  reside  ? ' 

Of  the  scene  which  followed  (quite  a  riot,  with  every  probability  of 
a  most  bloody  result,  and  which  would  have  been  the  first  blood  of  the 
civil  war — desiring  to  make  this  narrative  as  little  personal  and  as  much 
for  public  history  as  I  well  can)  I  shall  say  but  little.  The  excitement 
arose  from  my  own  heedless,  wild  anger  and  attempt  to  redress  myself 
for  a  supposed  insult  to  me  by  Colonel  Wilcox,  who  replied  to  me.  And 
but  for  the  brave  and  disinteiested  violent  interference  of  Mr.  Story, 
the  head  of  the  K.  G.  C's.,  in  actually  dragging  me  out  of  a  fight,  doubt- 
less there  would  have  been,  from  this  my  folly,  much  bloodshed  and 
many  deaths  at  that  second  tragedy  of  the  Alamo.  Whether  his  con- 
duct on  this  occasion  was  impelled  by  a  calm  forethought,  that  "  the 
time  was  not  yet,"  or  whether  he  had  a  half  romantic  sympathy  for  a 
brother  Kentuckian,  as  he  said,  "born,  too,  in  Anderson  County,"  I  can 
not  say.  But  his  course  seemed  always  to  me  most  brave  and  generous. 
For  his  K.  G.  C's.,  on  the  ground,  appeared  to  me  the  majority.  They 
wore  their  badges.  They  were  all  doubly  armed,  and  the  Unionists,  so 
far  as  I  know,  were  all  unarmed.  The  massacre  would  have  been  all 
one-sided,  and  of  us;  but  the  appearances  were  in  part  deceptive. 
This  riot  brought  the  Union  men  to  the  front.  They  were  thus  proved 
to  be  the  majority,  if  not  the  boldest  party.  They  took  possession  of 
the  stand.  They  squelched  Herod  Upson's  speech.  They  compelled 
their  hired  band  to  follow  our  mob  around  town,  "to  the  wee  short 
hours  ayont  the  Twal,"  tooting,  and  thumping,  and  clanging,  "  The 
Star  Spangled  Banner"  "Hail  Columbia"  and  "Yankee  Doodle"  in- 
stead of  their  former  rebel  tunes  of  "Dixie"  and  the  rest.  And  so 
passed  away  this  first  great  movement  in  Secession — a  flat  fail- 
ure. It  is  noteworthy  that  at  the  Secession  election,  long  after,  San 
Antonio,  the  head-quarters  of  the  K.  G.  C's.,  gave  a  majority  against  it. 
Was  our  victory  at  the  Alamo  the  cause,  or  the  effect  of  this  choice  of 
her  people.  Who  knows  ? 

The  elation  of  the  Unionists,  and  the  depression  of  the  Disunionists, 


— 18  — 

in  and  around  this  the  head-quarters  of  our  army,  and  of  the  army  of  the 
"  Knights  of  the  Golden  Circh,"  were  soon  changed  into  a  complete  re- 
versal. Inasmuch  as  this  secret  order  exercised  in  Texas  a  controlling, 
nay,  a  decisive,  influence,  in  starting  the  great  conspiracy,  and  as,  in 
my  calm  judgment,  Texas  was  so  potential,  if  not  supreme,  in  maturing 
it,  it  becomes  necessary  to  understand  something  more  of  it — its  origin, 
purposes,  doings,  and  results  than  is  usually  known.  The  "  Knights  of 
the  Golden  Circle,  or  "  K.  G.  C's,"  were,  then,  a  military  secret  order. 
Their  fundamental  principles  were,  or  by  those  who  best  knew  about 
them,  alleged  to  be  these  and  such  as  these — viz.:  To  preserve  and 
extend  American  slavery ;  that  Republicanism  had,  in  its  experiment, 
proved  a  failure ;  that  a  legalized  oligarchy,  or,  perhaps,  a  monarchy, 
with  hereditary-titled  orders,  were  the  only  class  of  institutions  suited  to 
the  wants  of  the  slave-states,  and  which  were  practicable  ;  that  the  im- 
mediate and  violent  dissolution  of  the  present  Union  and  Government 
was  practicable  and  indispensable ;  that  the  pending  Presidential  cam- 
paign, with  its  obvious  results  in  the  Black  Republican  victory,  should 
be  in  due  time  made  the  pretext,  or  false  pretense,  with  the  inflamed 
Southerners  in  the  place  of  its  real  cause,  which  was  the  slipping  from 
their  grasp  of  their  olden  supremacy  in  politics  ;  that  to  these  ends  the 
organization  of  these  politics  was  indispensable  ;  that  it  should  be  secret, 
that  it  should  be  sworn,  military  in  its  forms  and  spirit,  and  most  sum- 
mary, dangerous,  and  pitiless  in  all  its  actions. 

Accordingly,  instructed  by  the  amazing,  and  at  that  time  mysterious, 
success  of  the  " Know- Nothings"  just  before,  in  1856,  etc. — this  organ- 
ization, like  that,  but  with  wide  differences,  by  the  close  of  1859,  had  at- 
tained to  such  form,  numbers,  and  spirit  as  to  betoken  somewhat  of  its 
deeds  of  manhood  in  1860  and  the  spring  of  1861.  Then,  under  the 
full  blazes  of  Fort  Sumter  and  the  Southern  Confederacy,  and  of  the 
stirring  events  of  their  war,  "it  paled  its  ineffectual  fires  into  the  dark- 
ness of  that  oblivion  and  obloquy,  under  which  it  now  infamously  lies, 
even  in  the  public  opinion  of  the  Rebellion  which  it  engendered,  and 
to  which  it  alone  imparted  its  first  great  success.  Originally,  probably 
in  1857  or  1858,  this  association  had  been  gotten  up  for  fillibustering ; 
that  is,  for  piracy  and  robbery  purposes.  But  for  some  unknown  causes, 
it  had  fallen  through,  leaving  several  wandering  knights  along  the  bor- 
ders with  nothing  to  lose  and  everything  to  gain  by  a  revolution. 
Among  these,  the  two  vagabonds,  Geo.  W.  Bickley  and  his  nephew, 
were  employed  to  travel  over  the  State  and  organize  'Castles,'  receiving 
the  initiation  fees  ($i  by  each  knight)  as  their  compensation."  I  partly 
quote  the  above  from  a  cotemporary  pamphlet  of  James  P.  Newcomb, 
in  San  Antonio,  as  true  a  patriot  and  as  truthful  and  brave  a  man  as 
ever  lived,  in  my  opinion  and  belief. 
^The  degrees  were  five  in  number,  at  a  cost  of  thirty  dollars.  The 


funds  were  placed  in  the  hands  of  a  treasurer,  and  applied  under  the 
direction  of  a  select  committee  to  the  purchase  of  arms,  accoutrements, 
and  ammunition.  "  It  was  estimated  by  competent  authority,"  says 
Major  I.  T.  Sprague,  U.  S.  A.;  and  I,  as  an  eye-witness  in  a  certain 
sense,  must  add  my  poor  testimony  of  hearsay,  actual  observation,  and 
belief  to  his  authority,  "  that  eight  thousand  men  could  be  brought  into 
the  field,  at  four  days'  notice,  well  equipped."  Their  officers  were  Gen- 
erals, Colonels,  Majors,  and  Captains.  Their  discipline  stricter  than 
that  of  regular  armies. 

"  In  every  county  there  was  a  place  of  assemblage,  called  the  'Cas- 
tle,' at  which  reports  were  made  in  regard  to  individuals,  their  conduct 
and  opinions,  and  transmitted  for  final  action  and  adjudication  to  their 
head-quarters  in  San  Antonio." 

Here  you  have,  in  substance,  and  with  more  accuracy  than  is  usual 
in  such  cases,  a  presentation  of  that  once  so  formidable,  now  so  con- 
temptible, fellowship  of  evil,  the  "  Knights  of  the  Golden  Circle.'*  It 
was  to  this  band  of  mostly  mere  villainous  desperadoes  that  the  success 
of  rebellion  in  Texas  was  mainly  due — indeed,  it  may  be  said  wholly 
due,  unless  we  must  except,  as  another  great  coadjutant  influence  to  the 
same  end — in  another  association  of  a  widely  different  character.  This 
was  the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church,  South.  This  church  had,  as  you 
may  recollect,  its  origin  in  a  schism  based  solely  in  pro-slavery  zeal. 

I  give  you  my  recollection  of  the  case.  Bishop  James  O.  Andrews, 
of  Georgia,  married  a  widow  owning,  perhaps,  thirty  or  forty  slaves. 
Some  of  the  old-time  Methodists  of  his  own  State  took  exception  to  this 
act  as  being  in  violation  of  the  fundamental  and  living  law  of  the  Hook 
of  Discipline  of  the  church :  that  none  of  its  ministers  should  hold 
slave  property.  The  Bishop  refused  to  quit  preaching,  or  to  give  up  his 
"vested  rights."  He  said,  besides,  that  they  were  his  wife's  slaves.  His 
adversaries  alleged  that  this  was  a  false  pretense  ;  for,  that  slaves  were 
chattels,  and  a  marriage  vested  such  property  in  the  husband.  More- 
over, that  he  was  working  them  and  receiving  the  wages  of  sin,  and 
that  Wesley,  their  great  founder,  had  not  only  denounced  slavery  as  a 
sin,  but  as  the  "sum  of  all  "villainies"  The  disputation  waxed  wider  and 
hotter.  Mr.  Calhoun  entered  into  this  arena  of  theological  controversy. 
He  decided  that  Bishop  Andrews  was  manifestly  in  the  right.  But  the 
primitive  Methodists  impudently  rejected  this  arbitrament,  and  pushed 
up  their  litigation,  conference  after  conference,  until  finally,  in  the  an- 
nual conference  of  1844.  at  Buffalo,  N.  Y.,  I  think,  by  a  decisive  major- 
ity in  a  joint  resolution,  it  was  adjudged  by  this  highest  possible  tri- 
bunal, under  God,  that  Methodist  preachers  could  not  and  should  not  be 
slaveholders.  Whereupon,  immediately  ensued  the  first  experiment  of 
Secession ;  and  the  Methodist  Episcopal  Church,  South,  became  an  or- 
ganized, separated  religious  body,  and  a  vast  power  for  evil,  as  well  as 


—  20  — 

for  good,  in  our  country.  In  Texas,  certainly,  and  I  believe  throughout 
the  Southern  States,  it  was  almost  unanimous  for  a  dissolution  of  the 
Union.  With  much  careful  and  painful  scrutiny  and  observation,  I,  at 
least,  never  heard  of  but  one  (his  name  was  Henry  Pirtle),  who  was  op- 
posed to  Secession.  Mr.  Calhoun,  who  was  never  a  secessionist,  but 
only  a  nullifier  in  our  constitutional  issue,  applauded  this  Secession, 
upon  the  ground  of  the  moral  and  legal  rights  of  slaveholding,  pure  and 
simple.  But  modern  casuistry  has  invented  a  purely  technical  justifica- 
tion for  this  running  a  surveyor's  line— Mason's  and  Dixon's — through 
the  Church  of  Christ  and  the  Kingdom  of  Heaven.  With  eyes  and 
hands  uplifted  in  holiest  horror,  touched  with  a  little  human  mock  indig- 
nation, they  now  exclaim :  "  It  was  done  by  a  joint  revolution,  sir." 
The  informality  of  the  proceeding  has,  at  last,  become  more  atrocious 
than  the  substantive  offense. 

Is  it  not  funny  that  this  same  section,  under  the  special  leadership 
of  that  same  John  C.  Calhoun,  Secretary  of  State  under  John  "  Tyler 
too" — strictest  constructionists  all — in  default  of  the  numbers  in  Con- 
gress for  a  constitutional  mode,  by  treaty,  or  by  statutory  enactment, 
actually  annexed  this  same  Texas,  by  a  "joint:  resolution  only?"  And 
some  of  us  outside  sinners  might  add,  if  it  were  not  a  matter  too  grave 
for  laughter — indeed,  "  too  deep  for  tears  ;" — is  it  not  funnier  still  that, 
after  every  other  class  of  our  fellow-citizens  in  business,  society,  and 
politics  have  profusely  hugged  and  kissed  each  other,  "across  the 
bloody  chasm  ;"  have,  in  truth,  filled  it  up  and  covered  it  over  with  fresh- 
est earth,  and  greenest  sod,  and  brightest  flowers ;  that  two  churches, 
the  largest  and  most  influential  of  all  the  land,  do,  yet,  stoutly  maintain, 
on  purely  technical  grounds  (their  basis  of  slaveholding  all  vanished  !), 
their  eternal  Mason  and  Dixon's  line  between  the  saints  ?  And  a  third 
church  of  the  meek  and  lowly  Jesus  ("Peace  on  earth  and  good  will  to 
man,"  you  know  !),  and  next  only  in  influence  to  these  two  leading 
Protestant  bodies,  even  at  this  late  day,  refuses  to  give  up  their  absurd 
prayers  for  "our  rulers,"  or  that  foundation-stone  of  slavery  and  rebel- 
lion, the  "resolutions  of  '98,"  and  to  acknowledge,  in  their  "Book  of 
Common  Prayer,"  the  nationality  of  our  government.  As  Shakespeare 
wrote  :  "  How  these  Christians  do  hate  each  other!"  And  oh  !  what 
would  Bob  Ingersoll  say  of  Christianity,  if  he  only  knew  of  these  spe- 
cimens of  odium  theologicum,  or  brotherly  love  ?  So  potent,  far-reach- 
ing and  enduring  are  these  religious  hatreds — worse  even  than  mere 
natural  sin  ! 

This  church,  then  composed  of  as  good  men  and  women,  and  as 
good  Christians  as  in  any- in  the  Nation,  were  as  solid  a  phalanx,  in  that 
movement  for  disunion,  as  were  the  Knights  of  the  Golden  Circle,  which 
was,  in  general,  as  bad  a  band  of  men  as  ever  confederated  for  robbery,  pi- 
racy, murder,  and,  eventually,  for  treason.  Moreover,  that  church  was  the 


_„,       2     1          n- 

only  numerous,  honest,  influential  class  of  men  in  Texas,  which  did 
favor  secession.  And,  on  account  of  that  general  good  character,  with 
their  sincere  zeal  in  this  cause,  they  were,  alas !  the  more  fatal  to  our 
cause.  These  were  the  two  agencies  which  whirled  Texas  into  rebellion. 
Without  the  K.  G.  C's.,  both  in  conspiracy  and  waged  war,  no  move- 
ment could  have  been  made  against  a  Union-State  executive  for  dis- 
union. And,  without  the  votes  and  zealous  co-operation  of  the  Metho- 
dist Episcopal  Church,  South,  in  those  sham  elections,  no  approach  to  a 
majority,  either  for  the  convention,  or  for  secession,  could  have  been 
procured. 

No  great  public  agitation  followed  the  news  of  Mr.  Lincoln's 
election,  nor  the  local  and  temporary  excitement  at  the  Alamo  meeting. 
The  feelings  of  our  people  were  adversely,  and  somewhat  passionately, 
stirred  by  the  secession  of  South  Carolina,  December  2oth,  and  by  the 
removal  of  the  garrison  from  Fort  Moultrie  to  Fort  Sumter,  with  its  sud- 
den interruption  of  the  treaty,  "in  gremio  legis"  between  that  most 
supreme  sovereignty  and  the  "Washington  City  Agency,"  miscalled  a 
Nation  ;  and  which  was  then  represented  by  President  Buchanan  and 
his  Cabinet,  the  leader  in  which  was  John  B.  Floyd.  Still,  in  the  main, 
by  the  close  of  the  year  1860,  on  the  surface,  Texas  seemed  to  be  rather 
pacific,  calm,  and  idle.  She  seemed,  and  her  people  were  so.  But  be- 
low the  surface,  the  K.  G.  C's.  were  anything  else  than  idle,  or  calm,  or 
pacific.  Constant  vigilance,  vigorous  organization  and  action,  with  busi- 
est and  promptest  preparations  for  war,  must  have  been  going  on  below. 

In  this  state  of  affairs,  there  appeared  on  the  stage  of  action  a  new 
and  most  unexpected  actor.  This  was  Major-General  David  E.  Twiggs. 
He  was  by  no  means  unknown  to  us  Texans  of  either  party.  On  the 
contrary,  we,  each  of  us,  thought  we  knew  and  understood  him  well. 
What  the  disunion  party  thought  and  felt  about  this  event,  can  not  be 
guessed.  The  Union  party  were  in  much  doubt.  A  few,  if  not  confi- 
dent, were,  at  least,  hopeful.  And  so,  for  the  most  part,  was  I.  Never- 
theless, I  well  remember  to  have  had  some  scruples  in  the  case.  The 
caution  of  the  Queen  to  Hamlet,  about  his  "player-queen."  "The 
lady  doth  protest  too  much,  methinks."  For  I  had  heard  General 
Twiggs  speak,  over  and  over  again,  of  his  own  part  in  squelching  the 
rebellion  of  South  Carolina  at  Charleston,  in  1832  (where,  by  the  way, 
strangely  enough,  there  was  also  under  General  Scott,  one  Captain 
Robert  AnH^nn  and  fiU  Ti,Mirrn~r»  "r  'r  SV— in  of  company  K. 
Third  Artillery,  U.  S.  Army),  in  almost  these  precise  words,  interlarded 
with  most  ludicrously-frequent  and  oddly-placed,  and  impious  oaths: 
"  There,  sir,  was  a  great  man  for  you — of  the  olden  times — that  Andrew 
Jackson  !  And  he  was  the  last  of  them  too,  sir.  For  God  Almighty, 
sir,  lost  his  moulds,  sir,  when  Jackson  died !  The  assortment  is  closed 
out,  sir."  Remember,  now,  the  single  topic  was  on  many  different 


—  22  — 

occasions — this  or  these  solely,  viz.:  State  Nullification  against  the  Uni- 
ted States  authority  ;  Calhoun,  with  his  ordinances  against  Jackson,  with 
his  Proclamation,  and  Force  Bill,  and  his  Army  and  Navy,  under  his 
own  admired  commander,  General  Scott,  and  he  (Twiggs),  a  Georgia 
Union-Democrat,  joyfully  helping  in  the  coercion  of  that  most  sovereign 
of  all  earthly  sovereignties,  South  Carolina.  Remember  this  well!  I 
approved  of  every  thought  and  feeling,  uttered  so  often  and  so  forcibly 
by  General  Twiggs.  A  blind  adherent — yes,  devotee  of  Henry  Clay 
during  his  whole  career,  I  had  by  this  time  gotten  to  take  President 
Jackson's  side  in  this  affair.  I  regretted  that  Mr.  Clay  had  offered  his 
Olive-Branch,  of  the  compromise  bill,  to  afford  a  plausible  loop-hole  of 
retreat  for  the  South  Carolina  fire-eaters,  which  they  were  but  too  willing, 
yes,  too  happy  to  slink  into.  "Fire-eating,"  when  it  was  the  Jackson- 
fire,  was  not  so  delicious  a  food  for  them,  as  it  had  proved  so  often 
before,  and  so  much  oftener  long  afterwards,  when  the  Jackson -fire  of 
Union-democracy  was  quenched,  and  he  (heroic  patriot  and  founder  of 
democracy)  was  coldly,  and  stilly,  and  forever  at  rest  in  his  hermitage- 
tomb.  I  thought  it  a  great,  a  National,  a  world's  misfortune  and  pity, 
that  Mr.  Clay  had  not  permitted  President  Jackson  to  collect  his  duties 
and  to  "coerce"  South  Carolina,  at  the  points  of  the  Twiggs'  sabers,  and 
at  the  mouths  of  the  Anderson^Sherman,  cannons;  and  that  Charlestonf 
if  she  whimpered,  should  not  have  been  left  a  formless  mass  of  ashesjin 
blood.  I  think  and  feel  so  yet.  If  you  think  me  rash  in  reasoning,  or 
cruel  in  feelings,  or  heedless  in  speech,  do  but  recall  the  oceans  of 
blood  actually  shed  by  that  South  Carolina,  in  the  years  1860  to  1864, 
not  to  specify  other  more  precious  treasures,  our  debased  institutions, 
and  lost  morals ;  and  then  compare  this  preventative  with  that  proposed 
pool  of  bad  blood  in  1832.' 

General  Twiggs  had  been  ever  most  courteous,  even  kindly  to  me, 
in  all  our  many  interviews.  But  many  persons  told  me  he  was  both 
cunning  and  insincere.  And  so,  I  somewhat  feared,  "he  doth  profess 
too  much."  His  arrival  at  Indianola  to  reassume  the  command  was,  I 
believe,  on  the  5th  of  December,  1860.  As  dates  are  of  importance  in 
this  issue,  I  am  compelled  to  ask  your  attention  to  them. 

In  a  lecture,  "  The  treachery  in  Texas"  read  before  the  New  York 
Historical  Society  on  June  25th,  1861,  and  by  it  published  among  the 
documents  for  history,  p.  in,  etc.,  you  may  find  this  statement,  viz.: 
"  On  the  5th  of  December,  1860,  Brevet  Major-General  David  E.  Twiggs, 
U.  S.  Army,  arrived  at  Indianola,  Texas,  and  by  orders  from  Washing- 
ton, assumed  command  of  this  military  district,  known  as  the  Depart- 
ment of  Texas.  For  two  years  he  had  resided  in  New  Orleans,  La., 
retired  from  active  military  duties,  owing  to  age  and  impaired  health. 
For  forty-eight  years  he  had  been  in  the  service  of  the  Federal  Govern- 
ment. Nature  had  endowed  him  with  a  sagacious  and  active  mind,  far 


—  23  — 

higher  than  with  that  element  so  essential  to  a  soldier.  Caution  and 
self-preservation  distinguished  his  career  in  the  army,"  etc.  Mr. 
Greeley.  in  his  "American  Conflict"  and,  so  far  as  I  know,  all  other 
annalists  adopt  these  dates. 

But  well-knowing,  personally,  that  they  were  erroneous  at  least  by 
one  year,  and  believing  them  to  be  very  significant,  I  applied  through 
my  nephew,  General  L.  N.  Anderson,  to  the  War  Department,  for  the 
exact  dates  of  his  service  in  Texas,  and  1  .have  just  received  the  follow- 
ing facts,  viz.:  "Twiggs  was  assigned  to  the  command  of  the  Department 
of  Texas,  March  18,  1857.  From  March  24  to  June  I,  1858,  he  was 
on  leave  of  absence,"  (an  interregnum  of  two  months  and  sjx  days). 

On  December  7,  1859,  he  again  went  on  leave  of  absence,  trans- 
ferring the  command  to  Lieutenant-Colonel  Seawell ;  and  on  reporting 
for  duty,  he  was  reassigned  to  the  command,  by  special  order  No.  33,  on 
November  7,  1860.  It  was  "under  this  order,  that,  on  November  27, 
1860  (not  December  5th),  Twiggs  resumed  command."  Here  was  an 
absence  on  leave  for  eleven  months  and  twenty  days. 

I  made  his  acquaintance  upon  the  passage  from  New  Orleans,  in 
the  steamship,  in  1858  (I  believe),  and  knew  him  most  pleasantly,  as 
before  said,  afterwards  at  San  Antonio,  and  up  to  his  second  leave  of 
absence,  December  7,  1859.  He  was«  therefore,  on  December  5  (or 
else,  November  27),  1860,  by  no  means  a  stranger  to  Texas  or  the 
army-officers,  or  the  people,  or  their  agitations,  public  opinions,  party- 
spirit,  or  elections.  On  the  contrary,  from  my  knowledge  of  him  and 
them,  I  fully  believe  that,  save  only  a  few  professional  politicians,  Gen- 
eral Twiggs  knew  more  of  all  than  almost  any  man  in  Texas.  Nor  was 
his  alleged  retirement  at  New  Orleans  by  any  means  a  loss  of  opportu- 
nities to  maintain  his  correspondences  with,  and  knowledge  of,  Texas 
men  and  things.  Indeed.  I  should  say  that,  except  San  Antonio  alone, 
New  Orleans  was  their  very  best  point  in  the  world  for  that  advantage, 
It  was  our  sole  gate-way,  going  or  coming,  for  communications  with  the 
outside  world. 

That  year's  leave  occurred  in  this  way.  The  General  was  really 
and  seriously  an  invalid.  Others,  as  usual,  thought  him,  "A  maladeim- 
maginaire"  I  did  not.  I  thought  him,  as  it  turned  out,  most  seriously 
affected.  His]complexion,  and  sundry  other  symptoms,  to  me  (no  doctor 
though)  betokened  grave  causes  of  apprehension.  Amongst  other  indi- 
cations of  a  declining  old  age,  was  a  most  romantic,  and,  to  me,  a  most 
touching — almost  womanly — affection  for  two  of  his  officers,  Van  Dorn 
and  Withers.  He  was  assuredly  unfit  for  any  inportant  business,  and 
ought  to  have  been  retired  for  life,  nolens  aut  *volens.  It  was  certainly 
sometimes  amusing,  to  us  ot  the  laiety  (to  a  surgeon  it  would  have  been 
funny)  to  hear  the  poor  old  invalid  tattling  over  his  complaints,  organs, 
functions,  remedies,  and  the  like  charming  topics  of  conversation.  One 


—  24  — 

of  his  conceits  was,  that  his  ^//-bladder  had  burst  an  opening  into 
either  his  stomach  or  heart,  I  forget  which,  and  his  hope  and  belief 
were,  that  if  he  could  get  to  Paris,  where  those  wondrous  body-carpen- 
ters and  cobblers  lived  (as  we  all  once  thought),  he  could  be  mended 
and  patched  up,  in  these  organs,  so  as  to  have  another  lease  of  useful 
life.  And  this  was  his  purpose,  as  he  gave  out  often,  in  applying  for 
this  year's  leave  of  absence.  But,  he  never  went  to  Paris.  He  stopped 
and  passed  his  time  far  more  pleasantly,  and  doubtless  with  quite  as 
much  benefit  to  his  health,  in  the  delightful  home  of  his  only  daughter, 
the  wife  of  Brevet  Lieutenant-Colonel  A.  E.  Myers,  quartermaster, 
stationed  atJSfew  Orleans  in  1858  and  i86i,and  until,  very  suddenly,  he, 
on  February  5,  1861,  resigned  and  took  office  straightway  under  the 
Confederacy. 

It  will  be  remembered  that  Lieutenant-Colonel  Robert  E.  Lee,  First 
Cavalry  U.  S.  Army,  was  in  command  of  the  Department  of  Texas, 
from  February  20,  1860,  to  the  return  of  General  Twiggs,  say  eleven 
months.  It  would  be  superfluous  to  say,  how  capable,  diligent,  faithful, 
and  universally  trusted  an  officer  this  gentleman  was  in  all  his  duties, 
official,  civic,  social,  domestic,  and  Christian,  during  his  whole — a 
model — life !  I  trust  it  will  not  be  out  of  place,  even  here,  for  me  to  add 
my  poor  testimony.  I  knew  him  well,  perhaps  I  might  say,  intimately, 
though  his  grave,  cold  dignity  of  bearing  and  the  prudential  reserve  of 
his  manners,  rather  chilled  over-early,  or  over-much  intimacy.  And  of 
all  the  officers  or  men  whom  I  ever  knew,  he  came  (save  one  other 
alone)  the  nearest  in  likeness  to  that  classic  ideal,  Chevalier  Bayard — 
"Sanspeur  et  sans  reproche"  And  if  these,  our  modern,  commercial, 
mechanical,  utilitarian  ages,  ever  did  develop  a  few  of  these  types  of 
male  chivalric  virtues,  which  we  attribute  solely  to  these  "ages  of  faith," 
Robert  E.  Lee  was  one  of  the  highest  and  finest  models.  Imagine,  then, 
our  surprise — our  amazement — when,  without  a  soul  expecting  him 
(unless  it  were  some  traitor-soul),  Triggs  startled  Texas  by  reassuming 
this  command.  Why  did  he,  with  more  than  promptitude,  apply  for 
orders  on  November  7,  1860,  the  first  day  after  the  Presidential  elec- 
tion ?  Why  did  his  friends  permit  him  to  assume  the  duties  of  such  a 
department,  so  onerous  in  the  quietest  of  periods,  and,  now,  upon  the 
plain  verge  of  overwhelming  troubles  and  dangers  ?  No  man  in  Texas 
better  forsaw  that  the  result  of  the  great  and  wide  schism  in  the  Demo- 
cratic party  must  be  Lincoln's  election.  No  one  better  comprehended, 
or  had  oftener  foreseen,  or  more  forcibly  foretold  the  troubles  and  ruins 
to  ensue.  Was  his  health  restored  ?  By  no  means  ;  it  was  painfully  and 
visibly  worse  than  when  he  left,  in  order  to  have  his  heroic  operations 
of  the  new  surgery  performed.  Was  he  himself  more  hopeful  of  him- 
self, or  of  the  common]  weal?  On  the  contrary,  Jeremiah  was  a  lively 
joker,  to  Twiggs  in  all  questions  pertaining  to  his  own  health  and  life, 


—  25  — 

as  well  as  to  those  of  that  government.  Whose  bread  he  had  eaten,  and 
whose  best  Bourbon  and  richest  wines  he  had  been  drinking  for  these 
fifty  years,  and  until  they  had  chronically  turned  sour  on  his  stomach' 
I  am  no  doctor,  nor  surgeon,  1  repeat.  I  know  almost  nothing  of  the 
gall-bladder,  nor  even  of  gall  in  social  or  domestic  life,  nor  even  of 
wormwood  since  my  infant  life,  but  with  some  little  experience  in  dys- 
pepsia, and  not  a  few  ruminations,  thereon  or  therefrom,  my  own  opin- 
ion was  and  is,  that  the  aforesaid  Bourbons  and  wines  quite  well  ac- 
counted for  the  symptoms  of  this  broken-down,  worn-out  valetudinarian 
And  why,  then,  was  he  so  promptly  ordered,  on  the  27th  of  November, 
A  D.  1860,  to  assume  such  a  command  ? 

We  come  now  to  safe  ground.  Doubts  and  speculations  are  out  of 
place  in  this  question.  This  was  but  fourteen  day*  after  Lincoln's 
election.  It  was  but  three  days  after  the  Alamo  meeting,  where,  as 
generally  already  throughout  the  South,  the  "regular  democrats"  boldly 
assumed  the  dissolution  of  the  Union,  as  a  fact  accomplished  by  the 
black  republican  victory,  and  which  they  themselves  had  so  sedulously 
and  presistently  brought  about.  The  coming  hurricane,  like  the  air- 
vacuum  preceding  a  cyclone,  was  felt  by  all,  everywhere,  but  most  of 
all  by  us  in  the  Cotton  Mates.  Why,  then,  on  November  27,  1860, 
should  Robert  £.  Lee  (sound  as  a  dollar,  in  body,  mind,  soul,  and 
honor — a  very  "Nathaniel,  in  whom,  indeed  was  no  guile,"  nor  any  gall 
either)  be  relieved  from  these  so  heavy  and  perilous  duties,  and  David 
E.  Twiggs  pushed  into  his  place  ?  My  friends,  I  can  tell  you  why.  It 
was  just  because  Robert  E.  Lee  was — Robert  E.  Lee,  and  moreover, 
because  David  E.  Twiggs  was  exactly  David  E.  Twiggs,  and  without  the 
least  resemblance, whatsoever,  to  Robt.  E.  Lee/  Robt.  E.  Lee  did  not  suit 
the  K.  G.  C's.,  and  David  E.  Twiggs  did  suit  them  to  a  dot.  John  B. 
Floyd  was  Secretary  of  War,  and  by  far  the  leading  man  in  Mr.  Buch- 
anan's ("Breckenridge,  and  Lane")  Cabinet.  He  had  been  administer- 
ing the  War  departments  for  months  in  the  interests  of  secession  and 
its  war.  He  had  transmitted  arms,  ordnances,  munitions,  to  these  very 
Governors  of  Southern  States,  which  in  the  event,  were  first  to  organize 
volunteer  companies,  to  drill  them,  and  first  to  secede,  to  advocate  and 
to  wage  war.  And  he  pursued  this  system  up  to  the  very  day  before  he 
resigned,  2gth  of  December,  1860,  and  actually  then  ordered  immedi- 
ately to  Ship  Island,  near  the  Balize  (mouth  of  the  Mississippi),  forty- 
six  cannon,  and  to  Galveston,  Texas,  seventy-eight  cannon.  Their 
total  weight  was  843,870  Ibs.  of  metal.  But  Fort  Sumter  had  awakened 
the  patriotic  Pittsburgers.  They  had  stood  many  such  orders  before. 
They  did  not  stand  this  one.  They,  the  people,  forcibly  prevented  this 
shipment. 

Floyd's  politics  were  bred  in  the  bone.  In  1832,  when  John 
B'  was  a  lad,  his  father,  then  Governor  of  Virginia,  had,  in  his 


—  26  — 

annual  message,  raised  hio  thin  bristles  against  old  Hickory.  He 
threatened  to  oppose  by  force  the  passage  of  a  Federal  army  southward, 
through  the  "  old  Dominion,"  on  an  errand  of  subjugation.  (I.  Amr. 
Conflict,  p.  100.)  But  proofs  that  John  B*  Floyd,  my  olden  and  ardent 
friend,  was  a  traitor,  out  and  out,  and  through  and  through,  were  superflu- 
ous, almost  "a  ridiculous  excess"  of  demonstration  here  and  now. 
As,  however,  that  truth  enlightens  our  question  as  to  Twiggs  and  Texas, 
so  much  commentary  on  the  then  War  Department  was  necessary. 

How  General  Twiggs  scattered  invitations  for  leaves  of  absence  to 
his  officers ;  how  he,  verbally  and  in  writing,  informed  them  and  the 
general  public,  at  his  first  setting  foot  on  Texan  soil,  and  along  his 
whole  trip  to  head-quarters,  that  "the  game  was  up;"  that  they  had 
better  go  home  to  attend  to  their  professional  interests  (anglice,  get 
other  military  commissions  from  the  new  Government  for  the  new  war)  ; 
that  "the  Union  would  be  at  an  end  in  less  than  sixty  days  ;  and,  if  they 
had  pay  due  them,  to  draw  it  at  once,  as  it  would  be  the  last ;"  all  this 
has  been  duly  recorded  in  all  the  memoirs  of  those  times.  These  words 
are  a  quotation  from  Twiggs.  (See  Sprague,  p.  in.)  And  all  these 
things  you  have  often  read  elsewhere,  and,  perhaps,  remember.  But 
you  can  not  conceive  the  vigor,  persistence,  and  zeal  of  these  talks  and 
letters  of  our  new  commander  on  his  return  to  Texas.  He  still  seemed 
to  me  to  wear  a  mask.  But  the  secession  side  of  his  face  was  less  cov- 
ered than  before.  He  talked  very  differently  to  the  two  parties,  when 
separated.  But  he  always,  whatever  he  said  of  himself,  or  his  own  pur- 
poses, encouraged  the  disunionists  and  discouraged  us  almost  into  de- 
spair. He  still  babbled  of  that  greatest  man,  Jackson,  "of  the  Proclama- 
tion and  the  Force  Bill,"  as  formerly.  But,  then,  he  stirred  by  his  talk 
the  patriotism  of  his  hearers  into  enthusiasm,  whilst,  now,  he  sank  us 
into  the  very  "slough  of  despond."  There  was  absolutely  no  Ulysses 
to  bend  Jackson's  bow.  All  of  our  side  were  both  pigmies  and  pol- 
troons. Nor,  can  you  imagine,  unless  you  have  lived  as  we  did,  at  the 
head-quarters  of  a  vast  frontier  department,  and  knew  of  the  power  and 
patronage  of  its  commander,  what  a  vast  influence  upon  our  two  par- 
ties there,  these  vile,  traitorous,  desponding  speeches  and  writings  pro- 
duced. His  official  letters,  often  assuming  an  air  of  frankness,  were 
of  like  tenor.  On  December  I5th  (so  soon,  too  !),  he  foretells  secession 
of  Southern  States  and  Texas,  before  March  4th  ; — asks  instructions  ; 
says  he  is  "too  old  and  feeble  to  take  part ;  can  only  await  the  event,  and 
then,  when  turned  adrift,  make  my  way  home,  if  I  have  one."  On 
December  2jth  he  repeats  his  Cassandra  prophecies,  asks  instructions 
(well  knowing  sensible  instructions  to  be  utterly  impossible  to  his  vague 
communications,  without  form,  and  void)  ;  and  adds,  that  he  "shall  re- 
main until  my  services  can  no  longer  be  available."  On  December 
28th,  General  Scott  replies  to  the  letter  of  the  1 5th  instant,  reminding 


—  27  — 

Twiggs  that  specific  instructions  in  this  dilemma  were  out  of  the  ques- 
tion, and  that  he  could  only  tell  him,  in  effect,  to  do  his  duty  as  best  he 
possibly  could  in  his  trying  situation ;  and  here  follows  the  strangest 
sentence  to  those  who  do  not  know  these  two  men  as  I  did,  in  these 
words,  viz.:  "That  these  proceedings  are  reminding  him  (Scott)  viv- 
idly of  the  interview  he  had  with  you  (Twiggs),  in  Augusta,  in  1832." 
"There's  wormwood  for  you !"  General  Scott  then  complains,  that, 
though  he  had  labored  hard,  in  suggesting  and  urging  proper  measures 
to  vindicate  the  Saws  and  property  of  the  United  States  without  waging 
war,  etc.,  all  in  good  time  to  have  them  peaceably  and  efficiently  car- 
ried out,  he  had  failed  to  secure  the  favorable  attention  of  the  Govern- 
ment. The  president  was  friendly,  and  respectfully  listened ;  "but  the 
War  Department  [under  Floydj  has  been  little  communicative.  Up  to 
this  time  he  (Scott)  has  not  been,  shown  the  written  instructions  of  Major 
Anderson,  nor  the  purport  of  these  more  recently  conveyed  to  Fort 
Moultrie  by  Major  Buell." 

"  He  can  only  leave  the  administration  of  your  command  in  your 
hands  with  the  laws  and  regulations  to  guide  you,  etc.  By  Geo.  W. 
Lay,  Major-General  W.  Scott." 

This  letter  makes  it  necessarv  to  go  backward  in  our  narrative  a 
few  weeks.  Many  of  you  may  have  forgotten  a  certain  monograph  of 
Gen.  Scott,  written  before  the  Presidential  election  and  originally  in- 
tended for  private  circulation,  called.  "Views  suggested  by  the  imminent 
danger,  October  29,  1860,  of  a' disruption  of  the  Union  by  the  seces- 
sion of  one  or  more  of  the  Southern  States." 

Very  different  opinions  of  this  paper,  by  various  parties,  have  pre- 
vailed. I  suppose  the  opinions  of  a  vast  majority  of  cotemporary  crit- 
ics are  decidedly  adverse,  not  only  to  the  "views,"  per  se,  as  a  cam- 
paign scheme  for  the  coming  war,  but  also  to  the  prudence  or  policy  of 
its  disclosure  to  the  enemy.  As  for  myself,  not  claiming  to3be  any  more 
a  military  man  than  a  doctor,  yet,  looking  at  the  questions  involved,  in 
the  mere  light  of  common  sense — of  "  hard  horse  sense,"  as  we  Ken- 
tuckians  call  that  best  sort  of  sense  —I  must  say,  that  I  do  believe  this 
paper  to  be  only  another  of  the  many  previous  proofs  that  Winfield 
Scott  was,  without  any  equal,  the  very  greatest  genius  and  artist  in  war 
and  war  matters,  whom  this  country  has  ever  developed.  I  have  habit, 
ually  excepted  George  Washington  and  General  Greene.  But  as  the 
exception  was  always  a  weight  upon*  my  historical  conscience,  I  have 
concluded  to  make  a  clean  breast  of  it,  and  thus  to  blurt  out  what  hon- 
estly I  think.  Omitting  his  eventual  sub-divisions  of  secession,  which  was 
intended  as  a  suggestion  to  intimidate  and  delay  the  "Mason  and 
Dixon,"  and,  also,  River-Line  advocates  and  asses  ; — this  plan  was,  in 
substance,  to  make  Cairo  a  base  of  operations,  to  use  the  rivers — Ohio 
Mississippi,  Missouri,  etc.  (down  stream,  remember!) — for  transporting 


—  28  — 

all  the  men  and  materials  fo^  various  war  ;  to  descend  the  Mississippi 
River,  seizing  in  advance,  and  entrenching  and  fortifying  every  strategic 
point  from  Cairo  to  the  gulf;  to  ascend  the  river  by  our  Navy  for  like 
purposes,  and  to  patrol  it,  with  the  help  of  our  fresh-water  steamers, 
against  all  crossings  between  our  posts  ;  and  so,  at  the  very  outset  of  the 
war  (if  these  "Views"  should  not  prevent  any  war),  and,  before  the 
rebels,  then  destitute  of  arms,  transportation,  etc.,  etc.,  could  have  pos- 
sibly marched  through  the  mud,  to  have  anticipated  or  intercepted  these, 
our,  so  facile,  movements  and  measures,  to  have  utterly  dissevered 
Texas  with  her  rangers  and  beeves,  and  western  Louisiana,  and  Arkan- 
sas, and  Missouri  from  the  Confederacy  in  its  very  birth-throes.  After  this 
bisection,  to  have  repeated  a  like  process  up  the  Tennessee  and  Cum- 
berland rivers,  with  fit  variations  by  land  forces,  if  necessary — that  is, 
unless  the  rebels  should  have  "thrown  up  the  sponge,"  as  they  must 
have  done,  after  the  creation  of  the  first  grand  chasm. 

Of  this  paper  General  Scott  made  two  copies,  with  some  brief  and 
moderate  preliminary  arguments  against  secession  on  moral  and  pru- 
dential grounds.  The  whole  aim  of  this  essay  was  intended  to  deter 
these  infatuated  men,  upon  the  ground  of  the  National  advantages  in 
geographical  positions  and  from  her  exclusive  possession  of  these  river 
facilities  and  their  various  supplies,  and  by  thus  showing  how  easily t 
surely  and  speedily  they  would  be  conquered.  And  yet,  certain  astute 
military  critics,  within  the  cliques  of  rival  aspirants  for  the  command-in- 
chief,  raised  their  hands  and  eyes  in  holy  horror  at  this  artless  disclosure 
of  our  military  plans  to  the  enemy.  As  if  the  main  object  of  the 
monogram  had  not  been  to  frighten  these  southern  fools  from  wag- 
ing any  war  at  all,  and  as  if  it  could  make  any  the  least  difference, 
even  in  case  of  war,  whether  they  knew  of  our  plans  or  not.  Since,  from 
the  nature  of  the  case,  they 'could  not  help  themselves  in  anyway.  But, 
unfortunately,  we  soon  became  as  much  infatuated  as  the  Fire-eaters.  To 
re-occupy  and  re-possess  our  National  property  was  a  simple,  easy  matter 
of  a  few  "three  months'  "  volunteers,  with  the  loss  of  but  little  time, 
money,  or  blood.  The  North  overflowed  with  heroes  and  strategists  from 
the  press  and  the  bar.  The  Tribune  office  of  this  inspired  band  of  military 
chiefs,  raised  the  shout  of,  "On  to  Richmond  !"  General  Scott's  abilities, 
experience,  and  fame  as  a  soldier  and  strategist  were  nothing  to  those  of 
Horace  Greeley  and  his  imitators.  All  the  daily  papers  repeated  and 
re-echoed  this  wretched  cry  of,  "On  to  Richmond! '-  On  to  Richmond!" 
until  Scott's  "views''  were  howled  into  oblivion,  and  the  politician  cam- 
paign of,  "On  to  Richmond!"  was  closed  in  bloody  disaster,  flight  and 
shame  at  Bulls'  Run.  Then  the  Nation  waked  up  to  realize,  amongst 
others,  these  facts,  that  War  is  a  science  and  art  to  be  studied,  learned 
and  practiced  like  the  rest ;  that  volunteers,  flocking  away  from  the  field 
of  battle  upon  their  legal  discharges,  at  the  first  boomings  of  the  rebel 


-29  — 

cannon,  were  not  exactly  the  sort  of  troops  for  "  On-to- Richmond" 
Campaigns  ;  and  that  an  aggressive  and  invasive  warfare,  which  re- 
quired not  only  the  taking,  but  the  holding  of  multitudes  of  the  enemy's 
posts,  with  their  lines  of  communication,  must  consume  vast  stores  ot 
time,  money,  and  more  precious  lives.  Nevertheless,  we  blundered  on 
to  the  vast  advantage  of  the  rebels,  until,  at  last,  we  had  captured  Vicks- 
burg,  after  it  was  deliberately  fortified  by  the  rebels  at  a  huge  loss  of  all 
those  treasures.  In  other  words,  we  were  compelled,  so  reluctantly  and 
lately,  to  adopt  General  Scott's  views,  and  to  force  the  passage  of  the 
Mississippi  River,  adown  which  he  proposed  merely  to  float  "with  our 
soldiers  sleeping ;  and  it  was  thus,  at  last,  that  we  broke  the  back-bone 
of  the  rebellion,  and  made  General  Grant  a  hero  of  heroes.  Bear  with 
me,  if  I  exemplify  all  this  folly  of  our  first  strategy,  by  recalling  this 
fact,  that  the  rebel-usurping  Governor  of  Texas  reported  to  the  rebel 
Secretary  of  War,  that,  up  to  February  l,  1862,  (i.  *.,  in  less  than  one 
year),  he  had  sent  across  this  Mississippi  River,  from  Texas,  68,500 
Texan  soldiers.Meaving  in  the  State  but  27,000,  between  the  ages  of  six- 
teen and  sixty  years  of  age.  Her  beeves,  in  the  language  of  Scripture, 
"no  man  could  number." 

Well,  about  the  date  of  these  letters  from  Twiggs  to  General  Scott, 
say  about  the  I5th  of  December,  1860,  more  probably  before,  or  immedi- 
ately after,  Twiggs'  arrival  at  San  Antonio,  General  Scott  inclosed  to  me, 
at  San  Antonio,  his  second  copy  of  these  "  Views,"  with  two  others  of 
those  unnoticed  and  unregarded  efforts  of  his,  intended  for  timely  pacifi- 
cation, or  else  for  a  wise  war,  if  war  there  must  be.  and  to  also  incite 
the  administration  to  its  perilous  duties.  I  can  not  myself  doubt  that 
his  reading  those  "Views"  constituted  a  special  reason,  with  Floyd,  in 
addition  to  his  mistrust  of  Scott,  on  account  of  his  general  and  notorious 
good  character,  for  these  studied  outrages  upon  the  General  in  com- 
mand, specified  in  that  letter.  In  his  inclosing  and  explanatory  letter 
to  myself,  they  were  all  marked?  "Strictly  private  and  confidential." 
He  asks  me  to  show  his  "  Views "  to  his  old  comrades  and  friends, 
Brevet  Major-General  D.  E.  Twiggs  and  Lieutenant-Colonel  Robert  E. 
Lee,  and  to  such  other  officers  of  the  army  as,  in  my  discretion,  I  thought 
might  need  to  have  their  loyalty  to  the  flag  thus  braced.  I  did  exactly 
as  required.  Upon  General  Twiggs'  returning  the  paper,  at  about  the 
close  of  a  week,  he  made  only  these  curious  remarks,  which  follow,  and 
which  broke  a  silence  of  a  more  curious  reticence,  considering  our  many 
previous  free  talks  on  Secession  topics  and  the  general  subject-matter 
of  that  paper:  He  said,  "It  is  damned  strange,  Colonel"  (this  was 
his  own  title  for  me),  "that  General  Scott  should  have  sent  this  paper 
to  you."  I  made  no  reply,  because  I  had  been  troubled  with  that  diffi- 
culty myself,  and  I  then  especially  felt  the  delicacy  of  my  task,  in  the 
presence  of  my  conviction  that  he  took  umbrage  at  being  thus  overlooked 


—  3o  — 

by  his  old  comrade  and  friend.  That  General  Twiggs  had,  or  pretended 
to  have,  this  friendship,  appears  very  plainly  from  those  words  in  the 
report  of  the  first  interview  of  the  traitor  commissioners  with  him. 
"  He  professed  great  admiration  for  the  manhood,  soldiership,  and 
patriotism  of  General  Scott,  and  is  evidently  inclined  to  imitate  him  in 
the  present  crisis  in  many  respects."  Sp.  Doc.  p.  114.  After  a  few 
secords  of  rather  awkward  silence — for  all  this  "strictly  private  and 
confidential"  business  was,  by  his  choice,  transacted  in  the  presence  of 
several  persons  in  Vance's  counting  room — he  added,  musingly  :  "  Ah  ! 
I  know  General  Scott  fully  believes  that  God  Almighty  had  to  spit  on  his 
hands  to  make  Bob  Lee  and  Bob  Anderson,  and  you  are  Major  Ander- 
son's brother."  To  this,  I  replied  in  sufficient  modesty  and  truth  : 
"Yes,  General,  I  am  sure  General  Scott  holds  Robert  in  very  high  es- 
teem and  affecton.  And,  doubtless,  that  is  the  cause  of  his  intrusting 
me  with  this  most  important  paper  and  duty,"  whereupon,  as  I  saw  that 
he  had  nothing  to  add  about  that  affair,  I  took  the  package  from  his 
hands  and  bade  him  good  morning. 

I  then  carried  the  paper  straightway  to  Colonel  Lee,  as  I  knew  he 
was  preparing  to  return  to  his  regimental  duty.  He  took  the  paper,  and 
after  a  few  days  he  sent  for  me  to  come  to  his  lodgings,  and  accordingly  I 
went  thither,  in  company  with  a  dear  friend,  now  no  more,  Dr.  Willis 
G.  Edwards,  deceased.  Colonel  Lee  handed  me  the  package,  with  only 
this  remark:  "My  friend,  I  must  make  one  request  of  you,  and  that 
is,  that  you  will  not  suffer  these  Views  to  get  into  the  newspapers."  And 
I  immediately  promised  it,  for,  besides  my  limitations  to  the  same  effect 
by  General  Scott,  I  imagined  that,  to  military  minds  as  exalted  as 
Lee's  (for  I,  then  chiefly  on  General  Scott's  estimate,  held  him  as  high 
in  generalship  as  I  do  now),  there  might  be  some  reason,  for  Scott's 
sake,  to  suppress  its  publication.  I  well  knew  that  General  Scott  felt 
toward  Lee  much  as  a  father  toward  a  son,  and  I  supposed,  of  course, 
that  the  latter  felt  for  General  Scott  almost  a  filial  affection.  I  am  even 
yet  at  a  loss  for  further  speculation  as  to  Colonel  Lee's  motives  for  that 
request.  It  is  curious  enough  that  long  afterwards  Twiggs'  official  news- 
paper in  New  Orleans,  alleged  as  one  of  the  reasons  for  my  arrest  and 
imprisonment,  "that  he  had  been  detected  in  a  correspondence  with 
the  General  of  the  enemy." 

This  closed  our  interview  concerning  the  paper  itself.  But  some 
remark  of  his,  or  Edwards',  or  mine — mine  most  likely — led  us  into  a 
talk — well,  a  discussion,  say — of  our  national  dilemma.  Amongst  other 
immaterial  things,  I  had  hotly  denounced  the  current  proceedings  as 
causeless,  and  I  had  laid  the  blame,  as  usual,  with  me  even  at  so  early 
a  date,  entirely  upon  the  southern  side  of  fanatics  and  fire-eaters.  To 
this  speech,  or  else  to  the  part  of  it  which  had  characterzed  the  move- 
ment as  causeless  (I  can  not  recall  which),  Colonel  Lee  calmly  replied: 


—  31  — 

"that  somebody  surely  was  grievously  at  fault,  probably  both  factions." 
I  added,  that  formerly  this  had  been  my  firm  opinion,  but  that  now  I 
could  only  read  in  this,  our  great  crisis,  a  positive  conspiracy  of  south- 
erners to  spread  slavery  for  its*  political,  and  not  for  its  proprietary 
interests,  and  that  I  thought  the  Abolition  "Raw  Head  and  Bloody 
Bones"  was  their  mere  pretext.  The  truth  is,  that  I  forgot,  in  my  zeal  of 
debate,  that  he  was  the  very  officer  who  had  so  lately  suppressed  John 
Brown's  insurrection  in  his  own  beloved  Virginia.  However,  his 
patience,  or  prudence,  or  his  imperturbable  charity  of  good  breeding, 
made  him  overlook  my  one-sided  zeal,  and  he  added  nothing  on  that 
topic.  On  another  subject,  something  was  said  which  is  quite  relevant 
to  Lee's  status  in  the  Rebellion  then  and  afterward.  That  subject  was 
"the  loyalty  of  the  citizen;  to  which  authority  is  it  primarily  due — to  his 
State,  or  to  the  Nation?"  \  think  Dr.  Edwards  introduced  thist  topic  by 
asking  me  if  I  remembered  Jeff.  Davis*  doctrine  in  his  former  debates 
with  Foote  in  Mississippi,  and  more  recently.  I  said  "yes,"  but  that 
I  thought  that  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States,  in  Article  III., 
Section  3  Clause  I  (quoting  it),  left  no  room  for  doubt  or  discussion, 
as  the  law  of  treason  must  necessarily  decide  and  limit  the  bond 
of  loyalty. 

Without  pretending  to  report  what  was  said,  I  well  and  painfully  (and 
rather  in  surprise,  too)  remember  Colonel  Lee's  conclusion.  He  said  that 
he  was  educated  to  believe,  and  he  did  believe,  that  his  first  obligations 
were  due  to  Virginia.  Thereupon,  in  silence,  to  myself  I  recalled  these 
images,  viz.: — George  Washington's  farewell  address,  and  that  here  was 
Washington's  heir-at-law  almost,  and  much  like  him  too;  also  Lee's  elder 
brother's  bitter  book  against  Thomas  Jefferson,  the  author  of  all  these 
pernicious  politics  and  constitutional  heresies,  and  yet  further, — that  this 
was  also  the  pupil  and  protege  and  first  favorite  of  this  same  Winficld 
Scott,  and  then  I  sadly  asked  myself:  "whence  was  this  education?" 
But  I  subsided  into  silence,  and  we  left  him.  In  a  few  days  he  went  to 
his  mountain  post,  I  think,  and  I  saw  him  no  more  until  he  passed 
down  on  his  way  to  report  at  Washington  city  for  duty — about  the  mid- 
dle of  April,  1861. 

I  beg  leave  to  pursue  this  episode  (if,  indeed,  it  be  not  a  proper  part 
of  our  Texas  case)  into  that  scene.  He  returned  to  find  our  army  sur- 
rendered, not  "to  the  State  authorities,"  as  even  Mr.  Greeley  alleges, 
but  to  the  "  K.  G.  C's,"  under  the  command  of  one  of  their  own  num- 
ber, Ben.  McCullough,  who  had  no  vestige  of  a  commission,  under  State 
or  any  other  legitimate  authority.  Certain  "commissioners,  officers,  or 
persons"  were  appointed  by  the  standing  committee  of  public  safety  of 
the  so-called  convention,  "in  reference  to  taking  possession  of  any  of 
the  Federal  property,  within  the  limits  of  the  State."  I  am  quoting 
here  their  own  official  language.  In  another  "State  paper,"  they  are 


—  32  — 

reported  and  described  thus:  "Resolved,  that  Sam.  A.  Maverick, 
Thomas  Devine,  Phillip  N.  Lucket,  and  James  Rogers,  be  appointed 
commissioners  to  confer  with  General  D.  E.  Twiggs,"  etc.  And  again 
their  formal  commission,  dated  February  5,  1861,  signed  by  the  chair- 
man of  that  committee,  J.  W.  Robertson,  and  attested  by  the  first  two 
Rebel  Governors,  is  actually  in  these  words,  viz  :  "are  hereby  appointed 
commissioners  to  visit  Major-General  Twiggs,"  etc.  And  this  was  the 
sole  authority  under  which  that  supreme  triumvirate  (for  Rogers  did  not 
appear),  and  Ben.  McCullough  acted.  (He  was  "commissioned"  only 
by  themselves  ;  and  thus, thereby,  appoint  you,  Ben.  McCullough,  mili- 
tary officer,  and  order  you,"  etc.,  etc.)  And  such  was  the  authority 
which  proceeded  to  usurp  and  exercise  supremest  powers  in  civic  admin- 
istration and  of  open  war;  and  it  was  such  a  lawless  trio  which  met 
Lieutenant-Colonel  Robert  E.  Lee,  of  Virginia  (and  whose  general 
character  and  standing  I  have  briefly  hinted),  with  this  distinct  proposi- 
tion, that,  unless  he  would  then  and  there  engage  to  resign  his  commis- 
sion in  the  United  States  Army,  and  to  take  one  under  the  confederate 
authority,  he  should  not  have  transportation  for  his  effects  (which  were 
bulky  and  valuable)  to  the  coast.  Colonel  Lee,  thereupon,  came  to 
me  and  made  this  statement  in  greatest  agitation  of  indignation.  I  was 
even  surprised,  not  at  his  emotions,  but  at  this  exhibition  of  them.  He 
said,  that  after  forty  years  of  faithful  duty  to  his  whole  country,  and  he 
must  add,  that  it  was  always  as  he  was  sure  with  personal  honor,  to  be 
thus  maltreated  by  such  a  committee,  was  beyond  his  patience  to  en- 
dure. He  then  asked  me  to  take  charge  of  his  property  and  have  them 
sent  on  at  his  private  cost,  after  him.  I  undertook  this  duty,  and  we 
walked  to  the  proper  warehouse  and  commission  merchants,  Vance  & 
Co.,  to  make  the  necessary  preliminary  arrangements.  On  our  way,  or 
else  at  the  final  parting,  I  think,  on  the  same  day,  he  asked  me  if  I 
remembered  our  talk  at  his  rooms,  with  Dr.  Edwards  ?  I  told  him  that 
I  did  very  distinctly.  He  then  said,  in  substance  :  "  I  think  it  but  due 
to  myself  to  say  that  I  can  not  be  moved  by  the  conduct  of  these  peo- 
ple," or  "these  fellows"  (I  am  not  sure  which  epithet  he  used),  from  my 
own  sense  of  duty.  I  still  think,  as  I  then  told  you  and  Dr.  Edwards, 
that  my  loyalty  to  Virginia  ought  to  take  precedence  over  that  which  is 
due  to  the  Federal  Government.  And  I  shall  so  report  myself  at  Wash- 
ington. If  Virginia  stands  by  the  old  Union,  so  will  I.  But,  if  she 
secedes  (though  I  do  not  believe  in  secession  as  a  constitutional  right, 
nor  that  there  is  a  sufficient  cause  for  revolution),  then  I  will  still  follow 
my  native  State,  with  my  sword,  and  if  need  be  with  my  life.  I  know 
you  think  and  feel  very  differently,  but  I  can't  help  it.  These  are  my 
principles,  and  I  must  follow  them."  Now,  these  are  not  pretended 
to  have  been  his  literal  words,  but  it  is  a  very  faithful  report  of  what  he  did 
say,  in  its  spirit  and  very  nearly  in  its  language. 


-33— 

Now  comes  our  climax  to  this  little  episode.  When  I  reached  New 
York,  on  my  escape  from  imprisonment  in  Texas,  in  the  latter  part  of 
December,  1861,  General  Scott  invited  me  to  dine  with  him.  I  duly 
reported  myself  at  the  Clarendon  Hotel  where  he  staid.  But  he  said,  as 
he  wanted  to  have  a  long  and  confidential  talk  with  me,  he  had  ordered 
our  dinners  away  up  town  at  a  favorite  restaurant,  where  they  had  the 
best  old  wines  in  the  city — especially  their  clarets.  So  we  rode  many 
squares  to  our  meal  and  conference.  Our  talk  was  of  very  many  things, 
past,  present  and  to  come.  Toward  the  conclusion  of  our  chat,  I  sud- 
denly asked  :  %  "  But,  General,  what  about  General  Lee  ?  He  answered: 
"  Well,  my  friend,  Robert  E.  Lee  is  the  first  soldier  of  his  rank  in  Chris- 
tendom." I  said,  "General  Scott,  do  you  habitually  use  the  same  identi- 
cal words,  years  apart  to  express  the  same  thoughts?  "  "  What  do  you 
mean  !  I  don't  understand  you  ;  but  I  do  not  see  why  I  should  not."  I 
then  told  him  that  I  would  be  qualified,  that  when  I  asked  him  a  like 
question  about  Lee  (as  to  his  fitness  for  the  Superintendency  of  West 
Point)  that  he  had  replied  almost,  if  not  exactly,  in  these  very  same 
words.  He  then  went  on  in  his  usual,  rather  prolix,  but  wonderfully 
lucid  phrases  to  give  his  reasons  for  that  exalted  opinion  of  Lee's,  in  his 
services  in  Mexico,  especially.  "  But,"  I  interrupted,  "  what  about  him, 
in  this,  our  great  matter,  this — Rebellion — War  ?  "  When  he  told  me  in 
substance  that,  on  Lieutentant-Colonel  Lee's  return  from  Texas  to  Wash- 
ington, they  had  an  interview,  and  that  he  informed  Colonel  Lee  that, 
among  other  things  in  addition  to  his  speedy  promotion  to  the  Colonel- 
cy of  his  regiment  (and  which  immediately  occurred),  he  was  author- 
ized to  offer  to  him  the  command  of  our  armies,  next  only  to  Scott's  own 
rank  of  command.  But,  that  Lee,  thanking  him  politely,  went  on  to 
say  just  what  he  had  told  me,  on  leaving  Texas,  which  was  in  effect; 
that  he  would  be  guided  wholly  in  his  action  by  that  of  Virginia. 

And  here  again,  I  will  not  hold  myself  responsible  for  "ipsissima 
verba" -(the  very  words)  ;  but  I  do  say  that  the  two  declarations  in 
Texas  and  in  Washington  City  were  just  as  nearly  identical  as  the  two 
reporters — by  no  means  inexpert  or  regardless  in  the  use  of  words — could 
make  them  in  their  respective  reports.  And  A,  this  Robert  E.  Lee, 
upon  a  principle,  his  own  sense  of  duty,  turned  his  back  on  the  highest 
office  on  this  earth  (being,  considering  General  Scott's  age  and  infirmi- 
ties, really  the  commander-in-chief ),  under  an  established  government; 
and  with  a  foreboding  mind  and  a  saddened  heart,  went  to  Virginia  to 
share  her  fortunes  in  her  most  uncertain  destiny  and  in  a  certainly  very 
subordinate  rank,  up  to  the  time  when  his  great  abilities  compelled  his 
promotion. 

My  comrades,  what  do  you  call  this  sacrifice — for  its  grandeur  ? 
Where  in  history  can  you  find  its  equal  ?  I  fail  to  find  one  which  is 
equal  to  it.  Others,  perhaps  not  a  few,  may  have  been  sufficiently 

\ 


—  34  — 

devoted  to  their  principles  to  have  been  able  thus  to  resist  such  high 
temptations.  But,  it  must  be  a  very  few,  if  any,  in  all  history,  who  have 
been  at  once  blessed  with  the  opportunity  and  the  self-abnegation  to 
pass  by -such  powers  and  honers  so  offered. 

I  am  well  aware  that  several  publications  have  been  made  by  offi- 
cers and  gentlemen  of  very  exalted  characters,  which  give  a  wholly 
different  statement  of  General  Scott's  and  Colenel  Lee's  interviews,  from 
these  my  own  recollections  of  them.  And  I  much  regret  this  contradic- 
tion. Nor  can  I  either  avoid  or  explain  it.  But,  whether  the  alleged 
official  final  interview  between  them  was,  or  was  not,  fully  reported,  or 
whether  the  alleged  charge  by  General  Scott,  that  Colonel  Lee  was  a 
"traitor"  was  ever  made  at  all,  or  else  was  made  at  a  date  subsequent 
to  the  interview  or  communication  herein  narrated ; — I  am  very  sure  of 
the  general  accuracy  of  my  own  account  as  well  of  General  Scott's  dis- 
position toward  General  Lee.  And,  moreover,  it  is  just  because  I  be- 
lieve my  translations  of  General  Lee's  character  and  conduct  to  be  true, 
and  these  contradictory  assertions  to  be  most  erroneous  and  cruelly  un- 
just, that  I  feel  bound — all  the  more  in  proportion  to  the  rank  and  influ- 
ence of  his  posthumous  accusers — to  disclose  the  truth  of  history.  And  I 
am  yet  more  impelled  to  such  vindication  of  that  great  and  good  man's 
fame  by  the  conviction  that,  under  the  baneful  influences  of  clique  and 
party  at  Washington  City,  our  Government  committed  a  most  disgrace- 
ful outrage  in  the  seizure  and  uses  of  his  wife  s  estate  at  Arlington.  Pru- 
dence in  my  own  interests  might  deter  me  in  this  conflict  of  testimony. 
But  duty  to  the  memory  of  a  soldier,  of  whom  the  whole  Nation  ought 
to  be  proud,  is  a  higher  law  in  my  faith. 

Let  us  now  review  a  few  of  the  events  themselves,  in  their  order. 
On  January  15,  1861,  General  Twiggs  writes  to  General  Scott:  "As 
soon  as  I  know  certainly  that  Georgia  has  separated  from  'the  Union,  I 
must  of  course  follow  her.  I  most  respectfully  ask  to  be  relieved,  in  the 
command  of  this  department,  on  or  before  the  4th  of  March  next"  (In- 
auguration day.  He  picks  his  own  time).  "Signed,  D.  E.  Twiggs." 
But  others  had  different  ideas.  Endorsed  on-  this  letter  on  its  receipt, 
are  these  words,  viz.:  *"  Relieve  Major-General  Twiggs,  and  ask  the 
Secretary  (Holt)  to  devolve  the  command  on  Colonel  Waite,  with  an 
assignment  according  to  his  brevet.  W.  S." 

On  yanuary  i8th,  Twiggs  writes  again,  after  more  prophesyings 
and  a  sarcasm  on  the  commander  of  the  Department  of  the  East  (Gen- 
eral Wood)  for  his  boasting  "that  he  had  200,000  men  on  hand  to  regu- 
late the  South,"  he  adds:  "  After  secession,  I  know  not  what  will  be 
done.  I  know  one  thing.  I  will  never  fire  on  American  citizens." 
D.  E.  Twiggs  to  Adjutant-General,  at  Washington  City,  id.  p.  361.  And 
all  these  official  reports  were  repeatedly  exposed  in  his  letter  book  to 
private-known  rebels  as  well  as  to  the  rebel  commissioners,  even  at  their 
first  interview,  on  February  8,  1861,  (Sprague,  p.  119). 


—  35  — 

But  here  begun  a  new  correspondence  between  Governor  Houston 
and  General  Twiggs.  On  January  22,  1861,  being  notified  by  Governor 
Houston  of  the  danger  of  an  unauthorized  mob,  etc.,  he  issues  orders  to 
the  troops  at  the  Posts  to  take  up  arms  and  to  march  to  San  Antonio. 
On  the  28th  of  January  he  countermands  these  orders.  (No.  10.) 

It  must  be  remembered  distinctly,  on  this  my  testimony,  and  that 
of  very  many  others,  that,  from  the  time  of  his  return,  with  increasing 
frequency  and  vehemence  of  his  speeches,  General  Twiggs  had  not  only 
declared  that  he  "would  never  fire  on  American  citizens  under  any  cir- 
cumstances," but  that  he  would  surrender  the  United  States  property  in 
his  department  to  the  State  of  Texas,  whenever  it  was  demanded. 

If  it  were  not  making  this  narrative  too  biographical,  I  could 
relate  an  instructive  and  amusing  colloquy,  between  General  Twiggs 
and  myself,  upon  this  precise  point.  All  these  speeches  and 
pledges  were  duly  reported  to  Governor  Houston,  when  made  in  the 
hearing  of  Union  men,  mostly  through  our  leader,  Judge  I.  A.  Paschall- 
Governor  Houston,  who  was  quite  as  cunning  as  Twiggs,  on  Jan- 
uary 20,  1861  (the  day  before  the  convening  of  the  Legislature,  in 
which,  by  the  way.  he  had  no  faith),  addressed  a  letter  to  Twiggs,  with 
these  points,  viz.:  "  I  send  General  J.  M.  Smith  on  a  confidential  mis- 
sion, to  know  what  you  consider  it  your  duty  to  do,  as  to  maintaining,  in 
behalf  of  the  Federal  Goverment,  or  passing  over  to  the  State,  the  pos- 
session of  the  forts,  arsenals,  and  public  property  within  this  State  ;  and, 
also.  //  a  demand  for  the  possession  of  the  same  is  made  by  the  execu- 
tive (whether),  you  are  authorized,  or,  if  it  would  be  conformable  to 
your  sense  of  duty,  to  place  in  possession  of  the  authorities  of  the  State 
the  forts,  arsenals,  munitions,  and  property  of  the  Federal  Government, 
on  the  order  of  the  executive  to  an  officer  of  the  State,  empowered  to 
receii'e  and  receipt  for  the  same.  Arrangements  made  with  you,  by 
General  Smith,  will  be  sanctioned  and  approved  by  me  ;  and,  should 
you  require  any  assistance  to  aid  you  in  resisting  the  contemplated  at- 
tack upon  the  public  property,  etc.,  and  to  place  the  same  in  possession 
of  the  State  authorities,  you  are,  hereby,  authorized  to  call  on  the  Mayor 
and  citizens  of  San  Antonio  for  such  assistance  as  you  may  deem  neces- 
sary. Hoping  to  hear  promptly,  etc.,  etc.  Sam.  Houston." 

Was  not  this  a  snug  cornering  of  the  "  old  Georgia  fox  ?"  And  if 
he  had  been  restrained  by  the  least  regard  for  his  promises,  threats,  or 
other  words,  he  would  have  been  cornered.  Houston  almost  uses  his 
own  language  in  these  inquiries  of  what  he  would  do.  The  status,  so 
often  foretold  in  his  own  petitions  for  instructions,  was  actually  upon 
him.  The  demand  of  the  State  sovereignty  was  formally  made  of  him, 
now  became  so  ardent  a  "States-rights  man."  And  the  aid  offered  was, 
by  no  means,  to  be  despised.  San  Antonio  was  then,  as  long  after- 
wards, unquestionably  loyal  to  the  Union  by  a  large  majority.  What 


-36- 

was  he  to  do,  thus  caught  in  his  own  trap  ?  We  shall  see  presently 
what,  in  fact,  he  did.  Meantime,  we  must  intercalate  other  actions  here. 

About  this  time — I  think,  a  little  before — I  received,  in  a  letter  from 
Judge  I.  A.  Paschall,  and  others,  a  request  from  Governor  Houston  to 
come  up  to  Austin,  forthwith,  on  pressing  public  business.  And,  forth- 
with, I  went.  On  my  arrival  there  I  learned  two  things.  The  first  was, 
that  it  had  been  intended  to  make  of  me  a  big  man,  or  officer ;  that  is, 
to  have  been  "empowered  to  receive  and  receipt  for  all  the  forts,  ar- 
senals, arms,  munitions,  and  other  property  of  the  United  States  within 
the  State  of  Texas ;"  but  the  second  fact  I  learned  was,  that  I  was  only, 
"in  the  panning  out"  (as  the  miners  phrase  it),  a  very  common  man,  and 
no  officer  of  a  Sovereign  State  at  all !  Governor  Twiggs,  on  January 
22,  1861,  had  replied  to  Governor  Houston,  thusly  : — "To  his  Excel- 
lency, Samuel  Houston,  Governor  of  Texas  :  Sir;  yours  received  :  I  am 
without  instructions  from  Washington,  in  regard  to  the  disposition  of 
the  public  properties  here,  or  the  troops,  in  the  event  of  the  State's  se- 
ceding." Now,  whoever  thought  of  such  "instructions  from  Washing- 
ton ?"  He  had,  over  and  over  again,  declared  that  "instructions,  or  no 
instructions,"  he  would  never,  never — no,  never — fire  on  American  citi- 
zens ;  and  so,  with  the  air  full  of  rumors  of  mobs,  arming  to  seize  this 
trust  in  his  keeping,  and  of  his  own  consequent  commands  and  counter- 
mands for  all  the  troops  to  march  to  his  and  their  defense,  he  had 
plainly  and  repeatedly  invited  those  American  citizens  to  their  work  of 
easy  and  big  plunder,  as  well  as  Governor  Houston  to  his  demand. 
And  he  had  as  often  said,  and  in  my  hearing  too,  that,  if  the  State  made 
this  demand  of  him  (a  sworn  trustee !),  he  would  surrender  up  his  whole 
trust,  and  that,  too,  with  no  such  absurd  qualifications  about  "instruc- 
tions from  Washington."  But  hear  him  farther  in  this  letter.  It  gets 
richer  and  richer  to  the  perfect  day.  He  proceeds  :  "After  secession, 
if  .the  Executive  of  the  State  make  a  demand  of  the  commander  of  this 
Department,  he  will  receive  an  answer!!  Signed,  David  A.  Twiggs." 
On  February  2,  1861  (ten  days  after  his  correspondence  with  Governor 
Houston),  Twiggs  writes  to  Colonel  S.  Cooper,  Adjutant-General  at 
Washington  (yet),  enclosing  Governor  Houston's  letter  and  his  reply.  He 
adds  :  "As  I  do  not  think  any  one  in  authority  desires  me  to  carry  on 
a  civil  war  against  Texas,  I  shall,  after  secession,  if  the  Governor  re- 
peats his  demand,  direct  the  arms  and  property  to  be  turned  over  to  his 
agents,  keeping  in  the  hands  of  the  troops  the  arms  they  now  have." 
He  repeats  his  demand  for  "instructions  as  to  what  I  should  do  after 
secession"  etc.,  etc. 

It  now  remains  to  show  that,  after  refusing  to  the  duly-authorized 
executive  of  a  Sovereign  State  this  turning  over  of  the  United  States 
property,  after  refusing  to  that  officer,  even  to  say  what  he  would  do 
even  after  secession,  promising  only  "an  answer,"  whilst  he  was  threat- 


—  37  — 

ening  our  two  parties  and  the  Government  at  Washington,  that  he  would 
then  surrender  it,  and  knowing  weU'enough  that  his  time  for  surrender 
could  not  be  circumvented  by  the  United  States  Government ;  with  all 
these  facts  and  false  pretenses  upon  his  own  records,  it  only  remains  to 
be  shown,  that  he  did  actually  and  formally  make  that  surrender  before 
secession,  and  to  a  mob  of  volunteer  maurauders,  with  no  shadow  of 
pretense  of  any  recognized  authority  on  earth.  Unless  the  force  of  the 
K.  G.  C's  ,  invited  by  his  own  loose  talks  and  close  collusions,  are  to  be 
adjudged  as  legitimate  authority.  Nor,  can  any  defense  be  made  for 
him,  as  to  his  acting  thus  under  mistaken  convictions.  He  had  him- 
self distinctly  construed  this  date  of  Texas-secession,  as  legally  fixed, 
if  ever,  upon  March  2d  proxijno. 

The  months  of  December,  1860,  and  January,  1861,  passed  away 
with  Twiggs'  contradictory  talks  and  dispatches,  and  with  no  other  inci- 
dent worthy  of  our  notice  here,  except  that  sundry  petitions  were  sent 
to  Governor  Houston  to  convene  the  Legislature.  This  he,  at  first,  sturdily 
refused  to  do.  Whereupon,  some  time  in  January,  1861,  sixty-one  private 
persons  and  conspirators — a  majority  of  them  clerks  in  the  departments 
at  Austin,  and,  as  I  believe,  all  Knights  of  the  Golden  Circle— issued  a 
hand-bill,  over  their  own  signatures,  ordering  an  election  of  delegates  to 
a  constitutional  convention,  to  be  held  on  January  28,  1861  ;  and  even 
legislating  the  modes  of  conducting  and  officering  it.  The  convention 
itself  was  ordained  to  meet  at  Austin.  Of  this  document  (with  all  its 
results,  of  course),  it  is  well  remarked  by  Mr.  dreeley  that  "it  had  just 
as  much  legal  validity  and  force  as  a  harangue  at  a  negro  camp-meet- 
ing." And  yet,  with  this  incontestible  legal  proposition  staring  him  in 
the  face,  he  calls  the  mere  offspring  of  that  fraud,  hatched  "within  a  lit- 
tle month,"  "the  State  authorities."  This  election,  if  it  may  be  so  called  f 
was  held.  The  polls  were  opened  by  the  "  K.  G.  C's.,"  and  but  ten 
thousand  votes  were  even  reported  to  be  cast,  out  of  the  eighty-odd 
thousand  of  the  State.  And  many  of  those,  reported  as  cast,  were  as 
false  and  fraudulent  as  were  the  sham  authority  and  proceedings  by 
which  the  election  was  ordered  and  the  convention  ordained.  Indeed, 
with  such  an  area  and  diffusion  of  its  population,  with  the  time  and  labor 
requisite  for  the  conveyance  of  information,  as  were  these  conditions  in 
Texas,  it  is  safe  to  say,  that  this  mere  sham  of  an  election  was  over  be- 
fore a  majority  of  our  people  had  ever  heard  of  this  scheme. 

According  to  Newcomb,  Governor  Houston,  seeing  this  drift  of 
French-revolutionary  proceedings,  and  in  order  to  head  off  this  mere 
mob  of  a  convention,  and,  if  possible,  to  get  a  fair  expression  of  the 
people  in  a  proper  and  dignified  manner,  and,  with  some  semblance  of 
legal  forms,  after  repeated  refusals,  called  an  extra  session  to  take  into 
consideration  the  ordering  of  a  real  election  for  delegates  to  a  conven- 
tion. By  this  time  it  had  become  plain  enough  that  it  was  indispensable 


that  the  Legislature  should,  as  a  legal  body,  meet,  to  consider  and  de- 
cide upon  these  outrageously  revolutionary  proceedings  under  such  sham 
forms  of  law,  as  well  as  to  take  action  about  the  crisis  itself.  And  it  is 
merely  a  contemptible  bit  of  partisan  sarcasm  for  a  Union  annalist  to 
call  Governor  Houston  nicknames,  because  he  did  not  persist  in  his  re- 
fusals to  convene  the  Legislature,  for  the  reason  that  he  knew  its  ma- 
jority to  be  opposed  to  his  politics.  He  did  not  know — he  could  not 
know — he  had  no  right  to  dream  that  men,  who  wore  clean  shirts  under 
broad-cloth,  and  who  had  all  the  semblance  of  being  gentlemen  and 
men  of  average  honesty  and  honor,  would  act  and  enact  as  they  event- 
ually did.  Moreover,  I  insist,  that,  if  he  had  been  one  of  those  modern 
miracles  (a  statesman  or  soldier  who  sees,  the  future  as  clearly  as  he 
sees  the  past,  which  most  of  our  orators  and  historians  seem  to  demand 
of  all  other  actors  than  themselves,  in  those  early  rebellion-scenes) — 
Governor  Houston  ought  still  to  have  convened  the  Legislature  !  Here 
was  a  critical  dilemma  in  the  State's  destiny.  The  Legislature  was  as  gen- 
uine a  department  of  her  government  as  was  the  Executive.  This  novel 
state  of  her  affairs,  wholly  unprovided  for  by  any  laws  for  the  Governor 
to  execute,  was  naturally  and  specially  within  the  province  and  sphere 
of  the  law-making  power.  The  Governor  of  Texas  was  as  yet  no  dicta- 
tor. Texas  was  as  yet  under  no  martial  law,  nor  given  over  to  the  man- 
agement of  mere  party-tricksters.  The  forms  and  the  spirit  of  regular, 
legitimate  civic  government  were  still  his  plain  duty,  as  it  was  his  most 
politic  (curse  that  word,  "Politic"}  course.  It  passes  my  patience  to 
read  in  works  of  history,  by  men  and  writers  of  genius  and  moral  worth  t 
like  Horace  Greeley,  the  violent,  passionate  epithets  of  partisan  politics 
for  thus  doing  what  George  Washington  or  Algernon  Sidney  would  have 
done  in  like  cases. 

And  as  for  the  party-game  aspect  of  the  case,  it  passes  dispute  that 
this  was  one  of  the  cutest  tricks  ever  devised  or  attemped.  For,  first, 
a  legislature  or  legitimate  convention  would  have  caused  delay  in  lieu  of 
the  K.  G.  C.'s  indispensable  haste.  Second.  It  would  have  commanded 
the  support  of  every  honest  and  conservative  disunionist  in  the  Legisla- 
ture and  among  the  people  (if  anythere  were),  as  well  as  of  all  who  were 
afraid  of  their  constituents,  as  all  demagogues  ever  are.  In  ofher  words, 
it  tended  to  produce  a  division,  discord,  indeed,  among  the  secessionists, 
and  so  to  help  the  Union  cause  most  critically.  That  it  failed  in  all 
these  ends  was  no  fault  of  this  design.  It  was  circumvented  only  be- 
cause the  conspirators  were  more  unprincipled  in  their  plots  and  more 
recklessly  bold  in  their  bad,  bad  execution  of  them,  than  even  Governor 
Houston  had  ever  experienced  or  could  have  foreseen. 

The  rascal^  within  his  olden  acquaintance  in  former  Texas,  plots 
and  revolutions,  had  at  least  varnished  over  their  villainies  with  a  pre- 
tense of  legal  forms  of  law  and  order  or  of  popular  rights.  But  these  Texas 


—  39  — 

conspirators  and  traitors  threw  off  all  masks  and  vaunted  themselves 
for  their  lawlessness,  faithlessness,  and  disorder.  Nevertheless,  it  is 
simply  not  true  that  this  action  ended  in  no  good.  You  see  it  every- 
where stated  in  history  that  Texas  was  the  sole  southern  State  that  sub- 
mitted her  act  of  secession  to  the  people  for  their  adoption.  The  seces- 
sion of  all  the  southern  states  were,  in  fact,  sheer  usurpations  of  authority 
over  all  popular  rights.  As  Mr.  Stephens  truly  told  the  Georgia  Legis- 
lature, "Gentlemen,  you  were  not  sent  here,  with  these  extraordinary 
powers.  You  are  transcending  your  delegated  authority."  Neither  the 
southern  "States"  nor  "people"  ever  did  conspire,  secede,  or  rebel  in 
any  legal  or  honest  sense.  Squads  of  conspirators  plotted  and  usurped 
the  authority  of  the  "States"  and  the  rights  of  their  peoples.  The  peo- 
ples, betricked,  betrayed,  and  entangled,  only  acquiesced  in  the  una- 
voidable. And  this  usurpation  and  invasion  of  the  people's  rights 
was  as  strong  in  the  matter  of  the  subsequent  confederating,  as  it  had 
been  in  the  previous  dissolving  proceedings. 

But,  why  did  Texas  alone,  in  her  ordinance  of  secession,  require  the 
vote  of  the  people  to  give  it  life  ?  Was  it,  think  you,  that  her  Legislature 
or  convention  were  more  under  the  restraints  of  the  forms  of  law  and 
order  or  of  popular  rights,  or,  that  Texas  was  more  conservative  than 
the  other  seceding  States  ?  Not  a  bit  of  it !  On  the  contrary,  Texas  was 
notoriously  the  least  conservative  State  in  the  Union,  probably  in  the 
world.  She  inserted  that  clause  simply  and  purely,  because  Sam.  Hous- 
ton had  cornered  and  turned  the  lights  upon  this  squad  and  their  total 
want  of  authority  from  either  the  written  constitution  or  from  the  voting 
people.  A  debate  about  the  legitimacy  of  that  convention,  thus  sitting 
by  the  authority  or  sixty-one  loafers  on  the  one  hand,  and  of  Governor 
Houston's  proposed  convention,  with  all  the  sanctions  of  constitution, 
law,  and  popular  power  on  the  other  how  else  could  it  end — than  as  it 
did?  "We  must  now  fill  up  this  vacuum  by  a  retro-active  popular 
vote."  And  this  ruse  of  Houston  enforced  that  change  of  programme. 

But  it  is  alleged  again  that  this  proviso,  or  reservation  availed  noth- 
ing in  its  outcome.  And  that  the  State  was,  in  fact,  whirled  out  of  the 
Union  by  the  K.  G.  C's.,  before  the  day  of  the  popular  ratification  (vivi- 
hcation,  I  should  rather  call  it).  This  is  also  most  true.  But  was  that 
Governor  Houston's  fault  of  omission  or  of  commission  ?  You  might  as 
well  blame  the  architect  or  custodian  of  one  of  your  banks  for  insufficient 
walls,  or  locks  in  the  safe,  if  adverse  villains  should  blow  the  whole 
building  down  into  the  earth,  by  dynamite,  as  to  censure  this  true  Union, 
loyal  Governor,  because  these  yet  more  desperate  villains,  the  K.  G.  C's 
and  their  tools,  had  no  regard  for  his  restraints  or  defenses,  which  were 
all  that  an  honest  man  and  law-abiding  officer  could  have  interposed. 
The  Legislature  met,  and,  as  Newcomb  says,  "  most  atrociously 


recognized  the  convention  wholesale."  The  Governor  vetoed  this  enact- 
ment. It  was  again  enacted  over  his  veto.  And,  on  January  28th,  this 
convention,  so-called,  thus  elected  and  authorized,  assembled  in  the  Hall 
of  the  House  of  Representatives.  Having  been  ordered  to  Austin  by 
Governor  Houston,  I  had  remained  there,  conferring  with  him,  John 
Hancock,  Dr.  Phillips,  Judge  George  H.  Paschall  (brother  of  our  San 
Antonio  leader),  Banning  Norton,  Senator  Haynes,  and  a  few  others  as 
true  a  band  of  patriots  as  ever  thought,  felt,  talked,  worked,  suffered  or 
fought  for  the  best,  but  surely  then  a  very  desperate  cause.  On  Febru- 
ary ist,  the  convention,  by  a  vote  of  166  yeas  to  seven  nays,  passed  a 
secession  ordinance,  to  be  submitted  to  the  people  of  Texas  for  their  rati- 
fication or  rejection  by  the  qualified  voters,  "on  the  23d  of  February," 
and,  if  adopted  by  them  to  go  into  effect  upon  the  2d  of  March,  proximo, 
On  February  4th,  the  Legislature,  by  a  joint  resolution,  affirmed  their  or- 
dinance. 

It  remains  next  to  show  the  transparent  villainy  under  all  these 
shams  and  impudent  frauds.  On  the  same  2d  of  February,  the  conven- 
tion created  a  committee  of  public  safety,  with  the  most  absolute  and 
unlimited  military  powers  within  their  own  discretion. 

This  committee,  by  its  chairman,  Hon.  John  C.  Robertson,  reports 
to  Hon.  O.  M.  Roberts,  president  of  the  convention  that,  on  the  2nd 
day  of  February,  the  very  next  day  to  their  ordinance  of  secession,  and 
twenty-two  days  before  the  pretended  election-vote  by  the  people  for 
ratification  or  rejection,  and  the  whole  of  the  time,  less  than  that  one  day, 
of  February  ist,  before  the  sacred  day  when  the  secession  was,  if  ratifi- 
ed to  take  effect,  actually  proceeded  to  perpetrate  as  follows,  viz.: 

Resolved,  Thai  "by  the  people  of  the  State  of  Texas,  by  delegates  in 
convention  assembled, 'that,  should  the  standing  committee  of  Public 
Safety  deem  it  essential  to  the  public  safety,  to  appoint  commissioners, 
officers,  or  persons,  in  reference  to  taking  charge  of  the  Federal  property 
within  the  limits  of  this  State,  they  shall  have  power  to  appoint  such  and 
assign  them  their  duties  and  give  them  instructions,  under  which  they 
shall  act,  but  this  power  shall  only  extend  to  such  cases  in  which  the 
committee  may  deem  prompt  action  and  secrecy  absolutely  necessary. 
That  a  copy  of  this  resolution,  signed  by  the  president  of  this  convention, 
and  the  appointment  and  instructions  signed  by  Hon.  John  C.  Robert- 
son, chairman  of  said  committee,  shall  be/«//  authority  to  the  person,  or 
persons,  acting  under  the  same,  and  a  full justification  for  all  acts  done 
in  pursuance  thereof"  Adopted  second  of  February,  A.  D.,  ib6i.  And 
this  was  their  third  ordinance  enacted  after  that  of  secession.  Let 
us  now  consider  the  pressing  necessity,  for  this  promptitude  and  secrecy 
of  enactment  and  of  that  action  recommended  to  the  committee  of  Pub- 
lic Safety  or  their  proposed  commissioners.  Their  alleged  motives  in 
this  report  of  the  committee  are  partly  in  these  words,  viz.:  "After  the 


—  41  — 

passage  of  the  ordinance  of  secession  by  the  convention  "  (not  after  its 
ratification  by  the  people  at  the  election  of  the  23d  of  February,  nor 
after  the  2d  of  March  next,  when  it  was  ordained  first  "to  take  effect"}, 
"the  committee,  believing  that  it  would  be  of  the  highest  importance  to 
secure  to  the  State  of  Texas  the  property  belonging  to  the  United  States 
then  within  the  State,  that  the  public  safety  demanded  that  Texas  should 
have  control  of  the  arms  and  munitions  of  war  within  her  limits,  it  was 
too  manifest  for  the  committee  to  hesitate  as  to  their  duties  on  this  sub- 
ject. The  policy  of  coercion,  it  was  believed,  would  be  adopted  by  the 
incoming  administration  of  the  late  United  State  Government,  and,  with 
about  two  thousand  eight  hundred  United  States  regular  troops,  etc.,  etc., 
dangerous,"  etc. 

"  It  was  also  believed  by  the  committee  that,  although  many  of  the 
army  officers  in  command,  in  the  Eighth  Military  district  of  the  State  of 
Texas,  would  never  consent  to  use  the  military  forces  under  their  com- 
mand against  the  people  of  Texas."  (They  had  Twiggs'  thousand  times 
repealed  verbal  pledges,  and  even  his  exhibited  official  reports  to  the 
government  of  the  late  United  States  to  secure  him  to  their  cause.) 
"Yet,  the  committee  did  not  know,  and  could  not  know,  how  soon  the 
friends  of  the  'South'  might  be  superseded,  and  our  enemies  placed  in 
their  stead.  In  view  of  these  facts,  and  the  fact  that  Texas  was  justly 
entitled  to  her  share  of  the  public  property,  and  in  view  of  the  fact  that 
Texas  was  without  arms  for  her  defense,  the  committee,  under  the  au- 
thority of  an  'ordinance'  of  the  convention  passed  2d  of  February,  1861  f 
proceeded  to  set  on  foot  a  plan  for  obtaining  possession  of  the  United 
States  property,  and  for  the  removal  of  the  United  States  troops  from 
Texas."  You  must  mark  that,  so  far,  the  sole  plan  set  on  foot  was  a 
commission  to  visit  and  confer  with  General  Twiggs.  Passing  now 
our  comments  on  this  raising  of  the  olden  masks  of  peaceable  se- 
cession, which  was.  "that  by  going  through  the  motion  of  secession, 
we  can  obtain  better  terms  than  if  we  tried  within  the  Union,"  which 
lies  alone  gave  this  proceeding  its  success  outside  of  South  Carolina, 
let  us  scrutinize  further  this  plea  for  prompt  urgency. 

Remember,  here  again,  that  our  troops  were  scattered  in  sixteen  to 
twenty  posts  of  from  fifty  to  one  hundred  and  fifty  men,  artillery,  caval- 
ry, and  infantry,  along  a  line  of  frontier  from  Red  River  to  the  mouth  of 
the  Rio  Grande,  of  1,400  miles  (Governor  Clark  of  Texas  reports  it  to 
the  confederate  government,  1,700  miles  long),  and  at  distances  from 
San  Antonio,  varying  between  65  miles  to  Camp  Verde  up  to  675  miles 
to  Fort  Bliss.  And  most  especially  remember,  and  note  it  too  as  a  fact, 
bearing  upon  the  injustice  of  the  northern  censures  of  our  officers  for 
surrendering,  and  of  Governor  Houston  for  not  entering  into  that  insane 
scheme  of  an  extranched  Union-camp  at  Indianola — remember  and  note 
well— I  repeat— these  remaining  conditions  of  the  case,  viz:  That,  "the 


—  42  — 

means  of  transportation  had  been  cut  off  at  all  the  posts"  (by  General 
Twiggs),  and  the  amount  of  ammunition  and  subsistence  reduced  to  the 
consumption  from  week  to  week.  During  the  months  of  February  and 
March  there  was  not  one  command  in  Texas  able  to  move  one  hundred 
miles  from  the  post  for  the  want  of  animals,  wagons,  and  subsistence. 
Spr.  p.  in. 

It  surely  could  not  be  pretended  by  even  a  Texas  committee,  nor 
by  a  junto  of  southern  gentlemen  of  honor  (the  classes  of  that  era,  the 
most  prolific  in  false  pretenses  since  the  good  old  times  of  their  proto- 
types of  Venice  or  Lacedemon)  that  the  then  conditions  of  the  property 
or  army  of  the  late  United  States  in  Texas  was  a  tit  excuse  for  such 
"prompt  action  and  secrecy."  And  only  to  think  of  these  other  just 
causes  for  their  delay r,  viz.:  that  these  troops  had  all  been  placed  there, 
only  to  save  our  Texas  scalps  from  the  Comanches  and  Mexicans  ;  that 
the  troops  had  not  been  actually  removed  before  the  Comanches  followed 
through  their  vacated  posts,  and  the  Mexicans  so  menaced  along  their 
frontier  that  th«^  fire-eating,  usurping  Governor  (forgetting  all  his 
"southern  chivalry,"  |  began  to  squeal  like  a  pig  for  help!  help!  help! 
against  the  Indians  and  Mexicans  ;  and  also  that  those  very  distances 
and  other  Texan  conditions,  made  it  a  safe  and  easy  thing  to  capture 
our  troops  and  to  steal  our  property,  at  their  leisure. 

Their  real  motives  for  this  prompt  action  and  secrecy  have  been 
partly  confessed,  and  a  very,  essential  motive,  their  main  motive,  will 
soon  appear  most  openly.  Their  record  continues  :  "Preparatory  to 
the  appointment  of  officers  and  commissioners  under  said  ordinance, 
and  to  insure  secrecy,  as  against  the  enemies  of  the  country"  ("that's 
us"  as  Dot  says  in  the  "Chimney  Corner"),  the  following  proceedings 
were  had  by  the  committee,  viz  :  "  On  the  3d  of  February,  1861,  it  was 
moved  and  adopted  by  the  committee  that  all  officers  appointed  by  this 
committee  should  be  elected  by  ballot,  and  the  commissioners  above 
named  (Messrs.  Maverick,  Devine,  Luckett,  and  Rogers)  were  so 
elected." 

On  Monday,  February  4,  1861,  an  oath — not  iron-bound,  but  a 
steel-clad  oath  was  devised  and  adopted  to  be  administered  to  each  of 
the  committee.  Now,  as  I  suppose  myself  to  be  entitled  to  a  copy-right 
to  this  phrase  of  steel-clad  oath  for  that  committee,  I  hereby  permit  any 
future  historian  to  spell  the  word  "steel,"  just  as  he  pleases.  I  do  not 
myself  perceive  why  the  strictness  of  the  terms  of  this  oath  should  give 
any  preference  for  the  metallic  sense  over  that  purely  larcenious  purpose 
of  their  whole  proceedings,  which  so  soon  became  its  history,  viz.:  Theft, 
pure  and  simple,  qualified  by  the  higher  crime  of  robbery,  in  at  least  two 
instances  as  defined  by  strictest  law. 

And  now  here  comes  the  official  exposition  of  that  main  motive 
of  the  aforesaid  ordinance  of  the  convention,  and  for  such 


—  43  — 

prompt  and  secret  action  of  the  committee,  and  of  their  commis- 
sioners in  this  whole  matter.  Our  record  proceeds :  "  On  the  3d  day  of 
February,  1861,  the  committee  having  been  informed  that  General 
TwiggsJ  who  was  then  in  command  of  the  eighth  military  district  in 
Texas,  with  head-quarters  at  San  Antonio,  was  a  southern  man  by  birth, 
and  was  friendly  to  the  cause  of  the  South,  who  would,  in  all  probability, 
surrender  up  to  the  'convention*  (Mr.  Greeley  phrases  this — to  the 
' S/V*/*-authorities,'  and  Sam.  Houston  still  governor!)  all  the  Federal 
property  under  his  control,  on  demand  being  made,  passed  the  following 
resolution,  already  quoted  in  another  connection,  with  the  hope  that 
civil  commissioners  might  accomplish  the  purposes  of  the  committee 
without  the  display  of  an  armed  force-. 

"  Resolved,  That  Sam.  A.  Maverick,'  Thomas  S.  Devine,  Philip  N. 
Luckett,  and  James  H.  Rogers  be  appointed  commissioners,  to  confer 
with  General  D.  E.  Twiggs  with  regard  to  the  public  arms,  munitions  of 
war,  etc.,  under  his  control,  and  belonging  to  the  government  of  the 
United  States,  with  power  to  demand  and  remove  the  same,  in  the  name 
of  the  State  of  Te<as,  clothed  with  full  powers,"  etc.  Then  follows  for- 
mal and  fully  attested  copy  of  the  commission  to  these  ministers,  pleni- 
potentiary, from  this  high  and  mighty  band  of  "  K.  G.  Cs,"  to  this 
"southern  man  of  birth,  and  friendly  to  the  cause  of  the  South." 

"Given  under  my  hand,  and  by  order  ol  the  Committee  of  Public 
Safety,  at  the  city  of  Austin,  February  5,  1861. 

J.  C.  ROBERTSON, 
"Chairman  Committee  of  Public  Safety. 

"Attest  : 

"THOMAS  J.    LUBBACK, 

"J.  A.  GREENE." 

(Two  governors  for  witnesses.) 

"  But  lest"  (I  am  still  quoting  official  records)  "General  David  E. 
Twiggs  should  decline  to  surrender  the  government  proper,  and  delay 
might  prove  fatal  to  the  enterprise  (e.g.,  some  honest  man  might  be  put 
in  his  place),"  the  committee  thought  it  prudent  to  elect  Colonel  Ben. 
McCulloch  to  the  military  rank  of  Colonel  of  Cavalry,  and  commis- 
sion him  accordingly.  The  following  is  a  copy  of  his  commission  : 

"AUSTIN,  TEXAS,  February  3,  1861. 

"  The  committee  do  hereby  appoint  you,  Ben.  McCulloch,  military 
"  officer"  (no  Colonel,  or  other  rank  whatever),  "and  order  you  to  hold 
yourself  in  readiness  to  raise  men  and  munitions  of  war,  whenever  called 
on  by  the  commissioners  to  San  Antonio,  and  to  be  governed  as  directed 
by  secret  instructions  given  said  commissioners  concerning  said  com- 


—  44  — 

mand ;  and  you  will  station  yourself  at  the  residence  of  Henry  McCul- 
loch,  and  await  communicotions  of  said  commissioners,  or  the  Commit- 
tee of  Public  Safety. 

"J.  C.  ROBERTSON, 
"  Chairman  Committee  of  Public  Safety." 

Now,  is  it  not  a  grim  joke,  for  us  to  call  such  stuff  as  all  this,  and 
their  creatures  and  proceedings,  "the  authority  of  the  State  of  Texas?" 
And  considering  the  grave  question  in  the  matter  of  General  Twiggs' 
innocence  or  guilt,  to  be — whether  he  was  acting  in  pursuance  even  of 
the  so-called  State  Sovereignty  doctrines,  in  his  negotiations  with  these 
"  Commissioners  of  San  Antonio,"  and  in  surrendering  to  this  Ben. 
McCulloch,  military  officer,  an'd  his  mob  of  K.  G.  C's,  is  it  not  mere 
folly  to  give  him  the  advantages  of  this,  his  own  false  pretense  ?  No  ; 
Twiggs  well  knew  that  the  other  party  was  not "  Texas."  And,  in  his  cor- 
respondence, up  to  its  close,  he  repeatedly  reminds  the  commissioners 
(as  before  specified  in  another  connection)  that  "Texas  had  not  yet 
seceded — was  not  yet  out  of  the  Union."  And,  on  the  23d  of  Febru- 
ary, 1 86 1  (our  election  day),  L.  P.  Walker  Confederate  Secretary  of 
War,  thus  also  officially  admonishes  the  Texas  delegates  at  Montgomery, 
Alabama  : 

"WAR  DEPARTMENT,  MONTGOMERY,  ALA. 

"The  President  reminds  you  that  Texas  has  not  yet  seceded,"  etc. 
Mr.  Davis  was  too  wise  a  man  to  be  cheated  by  such  chaff  in  logic,  and 
too  honest  a  man  to  treat  with  these  fellows,  as  representing  any  govern- 
ment— State  or  other. 

These  high  "commissioners  to"  General  D.  E.  Twiggs,  "a  southern 
man  by  birth,  and  friendly"  etc.,  or,  "to  San  Antonio"  (as  the  case 
may  be),  thereupon  proceed  to  action  "  forthwith,  if  not  sooner,"  and, 
"clothed  in  this  little  brief  authority  (force),  played  such  fantastic 
tricks  before  high  Heaven  as  made  the  very  angels  (except  the  fallen 
ones,)  weep."  They  now  took  the  bits  in  their  mouths  and  the  reins 
upon  their  necks,  and  pranced  off,  out  of  sight  and  hearing  of  Conven- 
tion, Committee  of  Public  Safety,  and  every  other  authority,  except  that 
of  the  fallen  angels  aforesaid  and  their  K.  G.  C's  directory.  They  soon 
became  the  sole  power  in  the  State. 

The  truth  was,  however,  that  all  this  coquetting  about  a  "civic  sur- 
render," or  the  "display  of  an  armed  force,"  or  for  you,  "Ben.  Mc- 
Culloch, military  officer,  to  raise  men  and  munitions,"  was  all  a  cloak, 
devised  primarily  by  Twiggs  with  the  K.  G.  C's,  at  San  Antonio,  as  a 
mere  show  of  force,  to  seem  to  justify  his  proceeding.  Doubtless,  as 
this  upstart  government  grew  more  confident,  they  became  more  avari- 
cious. They  wished  him  to  fork  over^  quietly,  and  without  any  expense 


—  45  — 

incurred  for  "the  display  of  an  armed  force;"  and  so,  the  correspond- 
ence goes  on  between  the  high  parties,  from  February  6th  until  its 
finale,  February  18,  1861.  When  the  commissioners  make  their 
report  of  the  thing  done  —  how  Colonel  Ben.  McCulloch  arrived  on  the 
Salado,  on  the  night  of  the  l6th  of  February  —  how  he  marched  into  town 
about  four  o'clock,  A.  M.,and  and  stationed  his  troops  —  how,  "after  con- 
siderable delay,"  in  accordance  with  your  instructions,  we  repeated  the 
"  demand,"  and  after  considerable  delay,  came  to  an  arrangement  with 
General  Twiggs,  the  substance  of  which  was,  that  the  United  States 
troops  in  San  Antonio,  one  hundred  and  sixty  in  number,  thus  sur- 
rounded by  nine  hundred  and  fifty  (in  reality,  about  eleven  hundred) 
men,  were  surrounded  by  him  before  12  M.,  —  the  full  disclosure  of  all 
these  shams  becomes  too.  plain  for  doubt.  On  the  same  day  General 
Twiggs  issued  to  all  the  posts  the  following  : 

HEAD-QUARTERS  DEPARTMENT  OF  TEXAS. 

SAN  ANTONIO.  February  16,  1861. 
General  Orders  No.  j. 


The  State  of  Texas  having  demanded,  through  its  commissioners, 
the  delivery  of  military  posts  and  public  property  within  the  limits  of 
the  command,  and  the  commanding  General  desiring  to  avoid  even  the 
possibility  of  a  collision  between  the  Federal  and  State  troops,  the  posts 
will  be  evacuated  by  their  garrisons,  etc."  (Directs  then  their  marchings 
to  the  coast.)  On  the  same  date,  and  as  their  part  of  the  agreement, 
these  "  Commissioners  on  the  part  of  Texas"  gave  Twiggs  an  instru- 
ment, signed  in  due  formality,  that  they  "  formally  and  solemnly  agreed 
with  Brevet  Major-General  David  E.  Twiggs,"  etc.,  "  that  the  troops  of 
the  United  States  shall  leave  the  soil  of  the  States  by  the  way  of  the 
coast,"  etc.  "  It  is  the  desire  of  the  commission  that  there  be  no  infrac- 
tion of  this  agreement  on  the  part  of  the  people  of  the  State.  It  is  their 
wish,  on  the  contrary,  that  every  facility  shall  be  afforded  the  troops. 
They  are  our  friends.  They  have,  heretofore,  afforded  to  our  people  all 
the  protection  in  their  power,  and  we  owe  them  every  consideration." 

And  also,  on  this  very  same  date  of  February  18,  /86/,  this  same 
General  David  E.  Twiggs  indites  the  following  official  letter  to  Colonel 
Lorenzo  Thomas,  now  Adjutant-General,  U.  S.  A.,  at  Washington,  in 
place  of  Samuel  Cooper  (gone  straightway  to  the  same  office  at  Mont- 
gomery', Ala.,  probably  without  a  change  of  his  shirt),  as  follows,  viz.: 

"On  the  1  5th  instant,  the  order  (No.  22,  of  January  28,  1861,)  reliev- 
ing me  in  command  was  received.  On  the  morning  of  the  i6th,  some 
one  thousand  "State  troops  took  possession  of  the  public  property  in 
this  place.  Colonel  Waite  is  absent  some  sixty  miles  from  here,  at 
Camp  Verde.  I  await  his  arrival  to  surrender  the  command  to  him. 

"I  am  yours,  etc., 

"DAVID  E.  TWIGGS." 


-46- 

What  do  you  think  of  that  for  coolness  ?  Besides  his  outrageous,  in- 
famous delay  in  acknowledging  the  receipt  of  this  order  of  relief,  dated 
February  4th,  and  and  received,  doubtless,  before  the  I5th;  besides  his 
silence  during  all  the  pressing,  agonizing  correspondence  with  these 
impudent  usurpers  from  February  4th  up  to  date ;  besides  his  offering  to 
surrender  to  Colonel  Waite  his  command,  when  he  knew  himself 
relieved  certainly  three  days  before,  and  that  Colonel  Waite  could  have 
been  notified  and  gotten  to  San  Antonio  on  the  i6th,  or  two  days  before 
his  surrender  to  Ben.  McCulloch,  this  Major-General  of  the  United 
States  Army  actually  omits,  in  his  official  report  to  his  Government,  the 
stupendous  fact,  that  he  had  also  surrendered,  and  had  ordered  to  be 
evacuated,  all  the  posts  along  a  line  of  fourteen  hundred  miles.  Nor 
does  he  take  the  slightest  notice  of  the  same  order  to  report  himself  in 
person  to  Washington  City. 

In  a  second  report  of  these  fellows  (who  now  habitually  sign  them- 
selves "  Commissioners  on  behalf  of  Common  Public  Safety  " — no  longer 
"to  General  Twiggs,"  nor  "to  San  Antonio"),  are  these  amusing  pas- 
sages, viz. :  "  The  arrangements  entered  into  between  the  Commission- 
ers and  the  General  commanding  the  Federal  troops  in  Texas,  it  is  be- 
lieved, are  the  best  (so  far  as  regards  the  safety  of  the  State,  its  honor, 
and  pecuniary  interest]  that  could  be  made."  Then  follows  their  esti- 
mate of  the  value  of  their  steal,  surrendered  in  San  Antonio,  at 
$1,481,808.  The  surplus  of  funds  seized  in  San  Antonio  was  $33,472.39. 
This  sum  was  stolen  by  collusion  with  Major  Sackfield  Macklin, 
Paymaster,  U.  S.  A.,  who  informed  them  of  its  being  Lin  tran- 
situ  to  Texas.  Together,  they  plotted  a  plan  how  they  might  commit 
highway  robbery  upon  the  messenger  in  custody,  who  was  a  friend  of 
mine,  Lieutenant  Thomas  M.  Jones,  of  Virginia,  First  Lieutenant  Eighth 
Infantry,  U.  S.  A. 

Again  (they  proceed):  "the  successor  of  General  Twiggs,  Colo- 
nel C.  A.  Waite,  arrived  in  this  city  a  few  hours  after  the  negotiations 
with  General  Twiggs  had  been  closed."  It  is  an  interesting  side-fact, 
that  Colonel  Waite  got  lost  on  his  way  to  San  Antonio,  coming  in  on 
his  own  hook,  otherwise  he  would  have  been  there  before  the  surrender. 
But  to  prevent  such  a  catastrophe,  they  had,  among  them,  sent  out  a 
detachment  to  capture  him,  in  order  to  prevent  his  arrival.  So  that  his 
getting  lost  prevented  his  being  made  a  prisoner.  The  winding-up  of 
this  great  plot  of  treachery,  official  and  personal,  occurred  rapidly,  and 
may  be  generally  stated.  The  correspondence,  after  a  verbal  agree- 
ment, in  sundry  interviews,  began  February  8th. 

The  first  letter  asks  for  admissions,  by  Twiggs,  of  the  terms  verb- 
ally agreed  on,  "/»  writing"  On  the  9th  of  February,  Twiggs  replies, 
"that  he  has  this  day  appointed  a  military  commission  to  meet  'them,' 
to  transact  the  necessary  business  respecting  the  disposition  of  the 
Federal  property." 


—  47  — 

And  on  the  same  date,  by  special  orders  No.  20,  a  "Military  Com- 
mission, to  consist  of  Major  David  H.  Vinton,  Quartermaster,  Major 
Sackfield  Macklin,  Paymaster,  and  Captain  Robert  H.  K.  Whiteley,  Or- 
dnance Department,  is  hereby  appointed  to  meet  the  Commissioners 
on  behalf  of  the  'Convention*  (no  longer  of  the  'State')  of  the  people 
of  Texas,  at  such  times  and  places  as  may  be  agreed  upon  to  trans- 
act," etc. 

Then  follows  a  correspondence  between  these  military  and  those 
traitorous  Commissioners,  about  the  times  of  meeting. 

A  stall,  or  delay,  made  by  the  action  of  the  honest  majority  of  the 
Military  Committee  (Major  Vinton  and  Captain  Whiteley),  calls  out  the 
following  note  from  the  other  party  : 

SAN  ANTONIO,  February  n,   1861. 

To  MAJOR  D.  H.  VINTON,  SACKFIELD  MACKLIN,  and  CAPTAIN  R.  K. 
WHITELEY, 

Military  Commission. 
GENTLEMEN  :— 

The  undersigned,  by  virtue  of  the  powers  vested  in  them,  do  now 
demand  of  you,  in  the  name  and  by  the  authority  of  the  sovereign 
pleple  of  the  State  of  Texas  (twelve  days  before  the  people  were  to 
speak  for  themselves,  remember),  in  convention  assembled,  as  they 
have  heretofore  demanded  of  Brevet  Major-General  Twiggs,  a  delivery 
of  all  the  arms  of  every  description,  military  stores,  including  quarter- 
masters', commissary,  and  medical  stores,  and  public  moneys,  and 
everything  else  under  the  control  of  the  General  in  command  belonging 
to  the  Federal  Government. 

If  an  affirmative  answer  is  not  given  to  this  demand,  the  following 
questions  are  submitted  for  your  consideration,  and  answers  to  the  same 
are  respectfully  required : 

Do  you  consent  and  agree  to  the  following  stipulations  ? 

1.  That  everything  under  the  control  of  the  commanding  General, 
in  the  Department  of  Texas,  shall  remain  in  statu  quo  until  the  2d  day 
of  March  next  ? 

2.  That   no   movement,  change   of   position,   or  concentration  of 
troops  shall  take  place  ? 

3.  That    none  of  the   arms,  ordnances,  military  stores,  or   other 
property,  shall  be  disposed  of  before  that  time,  ordinary  consumption 
excepted  ? 

4.  That  upon  the  second   day   of  March  the  public  property  in 
Texas  shall,  without  delay,  be  delivered  to  the  undersigned,  or  such 
other  Commissioners  who  may  be  authorized  to  act  on  behalf  of  the 
Convention  ? 

An  answer  is  respectfully  required. 

We  remain,  etc., 

(Signed.) 


On  the  I2th  of  February,  1861,  the  Military  Commission  respond, 
seriatim,  to  the  questions.  They  assent  to  the  first  or  statu  quo  proposal, 
unless,  first,  authority  higher  than  the  General  shall  not  order  the  troops 
from  Texas;  or  second,  unless  the  inroads  of  Indians  may  make  it 
necessary  to  defend  the  Texans  ;  or,  third,  unless  it  might  become  neces- 
sary for  the  troops  to  defend  themselves  from  attacks  of  irresponsible 
parties  coming  from  whatever  quarter.  To  the  second  proposal  they 
agreed,  that  "no  movement  of  troops"  should  occur,  with  the  same 
contingencies  as  in  the  preceding  answer. 

To  the  third  (about  delivery  of  all  the  property),  they  agree  with- 
out qualifications. 

To  \htfourth  demand,  they  refuse,  first,  to  give  up  the  moneys  in 
the  hands  of  the  disbursing  officers,  being  out  of  the  control  of  the 
commanding  General.  Second,  to  take  away  from  the  troops  "their 
legitimate  arms  in  possession,  etc.,  which  may  be  necessary  for  an  effi- 
cient and  orderly  movement  of  the  troops  from  Texas,  prepared  for 
attack  or  defense  against  aggression  from  any  source,  etc. 

And,  now,  do  you  know  why  General  Twiggs  always  so  stickled 
against  this  surrender  of  the  arms  legitimately  in  possession  of  the 
troops  ?  He  knew  from  the  first  what  an  accident  revealed  to  the  other 
side,  viz :  that  whatever  authority,  not  legitimately  under  the  stars  and 
stripes,  might  attempt  to  take  those  arms,  must  do  it  at  the  hazard  of 
instant  death.  Our  brave  and  loyal  troops  swore  with  better  than 
Flanders  oaths,  that  they  would  not  give  them  up.  And  this  was  about 
the  only  genuine  thing,  in  all  this  varied  and  protracted  sham  of  nego- 
tiations, demands,  and  refusals,  etc.  As  between  Twiggs  and  the  Rebel 
commissioners,  it  was  all  masquerading  and  theatric  shows.  But,  as  to 
the  part  taken  by  Major  Vinton  and  Captain  Whiteley,  of  Military  Com- 
mission (two  as  good  soldiers,  loyal  citizens,  and  pure,  Christian  gentle- 
men as  ever  held  commissions),  they  did  the  best  they  could,  and  as  they 
were  bound  to  do.  For  all  these  transactions  were  under  Twigg's  eye 
and  direction,  and  in  his  office,  which  was  appointed  as  the  place  of 
the  joint-meetings. 

On  February  I2th,  the  Rebel  Commissioners  reply  and  controvert 
pretty  much  all  of  that  note. 

On  the  I5th  of  February,  the  Military  Commission  suddenly  an- 
nounce, "that  the  conditions  you  prescribe  for  the  movement  of  the 
Federal  troops  from  Texas,  will  necessarily  check,  for  a  short  time  at 
least,  further  conference  with  you  on  that  subject,  inasmuch  as  it  is  one 
over  which  we  have  no  control." 

"The  commander  of  the  department,  whoever  he  may  be,  whether 
acting  under  his  own  judgment,  or  by  the  advice  or  instructions  of  his 
superiors,  has  exclusive  authority  in  such  cases,  and  to  him  must  we 
refer  the  present  one,  with  a  report  of  all  our  proceedings,  for  his  approval 


—  49- 

or  disapproval ;  and  in  view  of  an  immediate  change  of  commanders  of 
the  department  of  Texas,  General  Twiggs  having  been  superseded  by 
Colonel  Waite,  all  the  proceedings  of  the  Military  Commission  appointed 
by  the  former  officers,  must  be  submitted  for  the  consideration  and  sanc- 
tion of  latter,  etc. 

(Signed.) 

Here,  then,  was  "a  pretty  spot  of  work."  This  Joe  Holt,  the  new 
Secretary  of  War,  was  no  lineal  successor  to  John  B.  Floyd.  He  had 
stupidly  relieved  Twiggs,  ordered  him  to  Washington,  and  put  a  plain, 
old-fashioned  honest  soldier  in  his  place.  What  to  do  now  ?  Hear. 

SAN  ANTONIO,  TEXAS,  February  16,  1861. 

Six  o'clock,  A.  M. 
To  the  Officer  in  Command  of  the  Department  of  Texas  : 

SIR:  — You  are  hereby  required,  in  the  name  and  by  the  authority 
of  the  people  of  the  State  of  Texas,  in  convention  assembled,  to  deliver 
up  all  the  military  posts  and  public  property  held  by  or  under  your 
control. 

Respectfully,  etc., 

THOMAS  T.  DEVINE, 
S.  A.  MAVERICK, 
P.  N.  LUCKETT, 

Committee,  etc. 

You  can  not  fail  to  notice  in  this  curt  note :  First,  the  speed  of  the 
growing  movement.  "Six  o'clock,  A.  M."  Second,  the  person  ad- 
dressed. It  is  no  longer  Brevet  Major-General  Twiggs.  It  is  "To  the 
Officer  in  Command,"  etc.  (whoever  he  may  be,  understood.)  Third, 
the  dropping  out  of  the  word  "respectfully,"  formerly  always 
written  before,  "required"  Fourth,  the  change  of  the  former  most 
formally  courteous  conclusions,  "  We  are,  gentlemen,  very  respectfully t 
your  obedient  servants"  into  "Respectfully,  etc.\'  and,  Fifth,  that  this 
promptitude  and  haste  were  stimulated  by  the  disclosure  of  the  fact  that 
their  great  southern  friend  was  superseded. 

However,  the  other  side  seems  to  have  survived  this  prompt  con- 
tempt. And  so.  having  sent  out  an  ambuscade  to  capture  the  new 
Yankee  Officer,  Waite,  and  a  special  order  to  "  Ben.  McCulloch,  Mili- 
tary Officer,"  in  some  unknown  branch  of  some  unknown  army  of  some 
unknown  government,  all  unknownable,  to  hurry  up  his  K.  G.  C.'s 
for  battle. 

On  the  1 7th  of  February,  they  again  address  a  known  person — 
Brevet  Major-General  D.  £.  Twiggs,  etc.  : 

SIR  : — In  our  communication  of  the  i6th  instant,  we  required  a 
delivery  up  by  you  of  the  position  held,  and  public  property  held  by  or 
under  your  control  as  Commander  in  this  department.  As  no  reply,  save 


—  5o  — 

your  verbal  declaration  (which  declaration  was,  that  you  "gave  up  every- 
thing"}, has  been  given  to  our  note,  and  as  the  undersigned  are  most 
anxious  to  avoid  the  possibility  of  a  collision  between  the  Federal  troops 
and  the  force  acting  on  behalf  of  the  State  of  Texas,  a  collision  which 
all  reflecting  persons  desire  to  avoid,  and  the  consequences  of  which  no 
man  can  predict,  we  again  demand  the  surrender  up  to  the  under- 
signed of  all  the  posts  and  public  property  held  by  you  or  under  your 
control  in  the  department. 

Please  answer  immediately.     We  have  the  honor  to  remain, 

Your  obedient  servants, 

(Signed.) 

To  this  note,  General  Twiggs  replies  forthwith,  agreeing  to  every 
demand,  except  his  repeated  provisions  as  to  the  retention  by  the  troops 
of  their  arms  and  clothing,  etc. 

On  the  same  day,  the  Commissioners  reply,  agreeing  jto  his 
provisos,  except,  they  demand  the  delivery  of  all  means  of  transpor- 
tation at  the  coast,  and,  "kas  likewise  the  artillery,  if  any  be  taken."  On 
the  morning  of  the  i8th  of  February,  Twiggs  begs  them  "  not  to  insist 
on  a  demand  of  the  guns  of  the  two  light  batteries,"  especially,  he  adds, 
"  as  you  must  see,  I  am  not  at  liberty  to  grant  it" 

The  Commissioners  immediately  agree  to  this  humble  request  of 
Twiggs,  to  relinquish  their  claim  on  this  artillery.  And  so  the  treaty  is 
concluded.  And  General  Twiggs  formally  issues  his  General  order  No. 
5,  of  Feb.  1 8,  1861,  before  noticed  in  another  connection,  making  his 
long-promised  surrender,  and  the  commissioners  thereupon  make  and 
deliver  to  him  their  agreement,  so  "formally  and  solemnly"  made,  and 
which  was  soon  to  be  so  infamously  broken.  All  these  notes,  from  that 
curt  specimen  of  February  16,  1861,  6  A.  M.,  were  written  with  Ben  Mc- 
Culloctis  army  of  Knights  of  the  Golden  Circle,  "in  coigns  of  vantage" 
beseiging  the  one  hundred  and  sixty  United  States  troops  confined  to 
their  quarters. 

And  thus  was  consummated  one  of  the  meanest  and  yet  most  suc- 
cessful treasons — a  double  treason,  too — of  all  history.  Its  utter  mean- 
ness, its  ignominious  want  of  all  honorable  principles  or  shows  of  com- 
mon decency,  are  too  obvious  to  require  explanation  or  enforcement. 
Of  its  SUCCESSES,  \\\.t  first  'was,  that  it  carried  the  so-called  election,  five 
days  afterward.  Without  this  brilliant  coup-de-main  (the  first  victory 
of  Rebellion),  the  majority  would  have  surely  been,  in  Texas,  for  the 
Union  cause.  As  it  was,  only  forty-two  thousand  votes  (less  than  half 
the  total  vote  of  the  State)  was  polled,  of  which  thirteen  thousand  votes 
were  given  by  the  now  confounded  and  dismayed  Unionists.  And  just 
here  (a  second  and  great  success)  was  the  beginning  of  that  series  of 
flockings,  pari  passu,  with  every  disaster  to  the  Union  cause,  of  our 
Douglass  democrats,  and  our  Bell  and  Everett  men  to  the  winning  side 
— the  Breckenridge  Democrats — who  received  them  more  gracefully 


—  5i  — 

than  they  came  into  their  Rebel  folds.  A  third  gain  to  the  Rebellion 
was  the  immense  money  and  military  values  of  the  public  arms  and 
other  war  properties,  on  the  very  verge  of  the  coming  war,  which  it 
hastened,  if  it  did  not  determine.  Fourthly.  Our  National  prestige  lost, 
was  a  vast  and  instant  impulse  to  Secession  .and  Rebellion  in  every 
slave  State.  The  announcement  of  Governor  T.  O.  Moore,  Governor 
of  Louisiana,  to  these  Rebel  Commissioners  (who  must  have  laughed  in 
their  sleeves  at  his  adjectives),  denotes  truly  that  Rebellion  impulse. 

".  .  I  take  pleasure  in  stating  to  you  that  Major-General  Twiggs, 
late  Commanding  Department  of  Texas,  was  recently  welcomed  to  New 
Orleans,  with  civic  and  military  honors  worthy  of  his  bravery,  his  tal- 
ents, and  his  long  and  very  distinguished  services." 

And  this  loss  of  men  from  our  ranks,  leaping  and  thronging  like 
flocks  of  mesmerized  sheep  after  some  mesmerizing  Secession  Bell- 
weather,  went  on  throughout  Texas  and  the  South  generally,  to 
such  a  point,  that,  though  we  reallly  had  such  majorities  as  I 
have  alleged  down  to  the  beginning  of  1861,  by  the  time  I  fled  from 
the  State,  in  the  fall  of  1861,  I  could  count  on  the  fingers  of  my  hands 
every  Union  man.  not  a  German,  I  knew  of  whom  I  could  trust  as 
a  Union  man.  A  decisive  defeat,  in  a  common  political  election,  fur- 
nishes a  sad  lesson  in  human  virtue,  from  such  selfish  flockings  from  the 
minority  to  the  majority-party.  But,  compared  to  the  same  exhibition 
in  a  revolutionary  contest  under  a  popular  government,  that  proof  of 
human  weakness  and  meanness  is  a  feeble  affair,  as  was  so  sadly  exem- 
plified by  bitter  experiences  in  that  Rebellion. 

General  Twiggs  was  immediately  made  Maior-General  in  the  Con- 
federate army,  with  head-quarters  at  New  Orleans.  It  was  my  mistrust 
of  him — for  we  now  knew  each  other  too  well — which  made  me  attempt 
my  return  to  the  Stars  and  Stripes  through  Mexico  rather  than  through 
New  Orleans.  He  distinguished  his  new  rank  command  and  loyalty  by 
no  remarkable  deed,  save  the  sending  to  President  Buchanan  a  letter, 
threatening  to  come  on  and  to  assassinate  him  for  the  word  "treachery  " 
in  his  order  of  March  1st,  dismissing  him  (Twiggs)  from  (fee  army.  In 
a  short  time,  his  disease  disabled  him  from  his  new  duties,  and  he  was 
retired  from  service,  to  die  on  September  15,  1862,  at  Augusta,  Gf. 

With  this  disjointed  and  imperfect  narrative  of  this  most  interesting 
and  much  misunderstood  branch  of  our  late  Secession  War.  and  which  is 
now  submitted  to  future  historians,  more  for  its  suggesting  than  supply- 
ing their  sources  of  histroic  truth,  I  now  close.  Let  us,  however,  as  well 
for  ourselves  personally,  as  for  the  whole  nation,  in  all  future  times,  de- 
duce from  this  crude  memoir,  this  grand  lesson  for  all  popular  govern- 
ments, viz  :  Beware — above  all  dangers — beware  of  these  misleaders 
of  the  people — the  demagogues.  There  is  no  limit  to  the  atrocity  of 
their  purposes,  nor  to  the  extent  of  their  ruinous  results  ; — from  those 
of  mere  maladministration,  down  to  those  of  Revolution  and  Treason. 


